Current positions

• 2020–present
  Head of CorText Platform
  Institut National de Recherche pour l'Agriculture, l'Alimentation et l'Environnement (INRAE) – LISIS.
  Leading the CorText Platform, a digital platform supporting open research in the social sciences and humanities on the dynamics of science, technology, innovation and knowledge production (secondment of 20% of my time to INRAE).
• 2019–present
  Assistant Professor / Senior Lecturer
  ESIEE Paris (Gustave Eiffel University).
  Teaching and research in science and technology studies, economic geography, data analysis and digital methods.

Research interests

Science and technology studies, economic geography, natural language processing, social network analysis, spatial analysis, data visualisation, scientometrics and digital research methods applied to large, heterogeneous corpora (publications, patents, press, institutional data).

Interests

Enthusiastic traveller, I love catching colours and situations with my camera. Here-and-there-pics gather some of these shots, a kaleidoscopic view of personal moments, without filter, found here and there, along roads and cities.

I share here my thoughts about places, where my feelings and understandings are built through the lenses of my camera.

Always with passion, I am also a researcher and teacher in Paris, France: follow me on twitter, and see more about the development of sciences and technologies here.

Ongoing research projects

• 2025–present
  REseaux, Territoires en Interactions et interrelations Cartographiques (RETICULAR) – Université Gustave Eiffel (UGE).
  The project first aims to examine the interoperability of applications for the analysis, exploration and geovisualisation of adjacency and flow matrices already developed at UGE (mainly Arabesque and CorText) and outside UGE (Netscity).
  More information: Journée d’étude “Espace & Interactions” .
• 2025–present
  ACC – Fondation de l'Université Gustave Eiffel.
  Mapping the research landscape on climate change adaptation in France, identifying actors, themes and locations in line with the National Climate Change Adaptation Plan (PNACC).
• 2023–present
  PLAT4TERFOOD – ANR.
  Platform of data, methods and devices for quantitative analysis and assessment of territorialised food systems. Support to the lead team on regional press data sources, data extraction and structuring, and design of a relational database on stakeholders (modelling, normalisation, SQL training).

Core courses at ESIEE Paris

• Mapping controversies (1st year of engineering school)
  Introduction to science and technology studies and digital methods for exploring controversies.
• Relational Database Management Systems (3rd year)
  Design and implementation of relational databases, SQL practice and data modelling.
• Social Network Analysis (5th year / Master in sociology)
  Network theory, metrics and visualisation applied to social and techno-scientific networks.

Selected courses, seminars & lectures – 2025

• 2025
  Journée d’étude “Espace & Interactions”
  Université Gustave Eiffel, Paris – 1-day seminar.
  Event page
• 2025
  Positioning a research project within its scientific domain with CorText Manager
  Graduate Program DIGIS (Digital Studies and Innovation for Smart-Cities) – 3-day course.
• 2025
  Information extraction and socio-semantic analysis for the social sciences and humanities
  EconomIA 2025, Paris – 3-hour lecture.
• 2025
  Investigating science dynamics on climate change adaptation using CorText Manager
  Bureau d'Analyses Macro Économiques (BAME), Institut Sénégalais de Recherches Agricoles (ISRA), Dakar – 3-day training.

Recent scientific contributions (selection)

Book chapters

• Book chapter · 2024
  Digital methods for technology assessment
  in Handbook of Technology Assessment
  Pauline Riousset, Anders Koed Madsen, Nicolas Baya-Laffite, Lionel Villard.
  
• Book chapter · 2015
  La construction d’une Europe de la recherche et ses effets sur les relations scientifiques transatlantiques
  Les Cahiers rouges, Fondation Jean Monnet pour l’Europe
  Philippe Larédo, Lionel Villard.
  

Journal articles

• Journal article · 2018
  The artificial patents in the PATSTAT database: how much do they matter when computing indicators of internationalisation based on worldwide priority patents?
  Scientometrics
  Patricia Laurens, Lionel Villard, Antoine Schoen, Philippe Larédo.
  
• Journal article · 2015
  The rate and motives of the internationalisation of large firm R&D (1994–2005): Towards a turning point?
  Research Policy
  Patricia Laurens, Christian Le Bas, Antoine Schoen, Lionel Villard, Philippe Larédo.
  

Conference proceedings & papers

• Proceedings · 2018
  Evolving Technological Capabilities of Firms; Patterns of Complexity, Divergence, and Stagnation in Corporate Invention
  STI 2018 Conference Proceedings
  Gaston Heimeriks, Antoine Schoen, Lionel Villard, Patricia Laurens, Floortje Alkemade.
  
• Proceedings · 2018
  The role of European funding on the nanotechnology sciences and technologies in Europe
  GEOINNO2018, 4th Geography of Innovation Conference
  Lionel Villard, François Perruchas, Thomas Scherngell, Michael Barber, Philippe Larédo, Jordi Molas-Gallart.
  

Reports, methods & other outputs

• Scientific blog article · 2022
  Analysis of the scientific production that mentioned the use of CorText Manager
  CorText Platform / HAL
  Géraldine Enderli, Lionel Villard.
  
• Technical report · 2019
  DOCUMENTATION OF RISIS DATASETS – RISIS Patent Database
  LISIS / RISIS
  Patricia Laurens, Philippe Laredo, Lionel Villard, Juan Pablo Ospina Delgado, Luis Daniel Medina, Antoine Schoen.
  

Maps & software

• Map · 2023
  RISIS Adapted Nuts
  RISIS2
  Lionel Villard, Benedetto Lepori, Massimiliano Guerini, Michael Barber.
  
• Software · 2019
  CorText Geospatial Exploration Tool
  CorText Manager
  Lionel Villard, Juan Pablo Ospina, Luis Daniel Medina.