Please tell us a little bit about yourself and the Computational Structural Mechanics Association (CSMA).
I am currently Professor of computational physics at the Ecole Centrale of Nantes (France), and work as a researcher at the High Performance Computing Institute. I was AIRBUS Group chair professor and at present I am ESI Group chair professor. Also, I was elected a fellow of the “Institut Universitaire de France” in 2011, and Fellow of the Spanish Royal Academy of Engineering in 2013. I received many scientific awards in four different fields (bio-engineering, material forming processes, rheology and computational mechanics). I am the author of 220 papers in peer-reviewed international journals. I serve as president of the French association of computational mechanics (CSMA) and director of the CNRS research group (GdR) on model order reduction techniques for engineering sciences. In addition to all those things I am also on the editorial board of many journals.
CSMA is the French association of computational mechanics with
three main missions:
- First, bringing together all scientists, researchers and groups working in the broad area of computational mechanics, the last involving modeling, simulation, validation and verification, high performance computing, etc., mainly in the area of solid mechanics, but computational fluid mechanics of Newtonian and non-Newtonian fluids is also involved;
- Promote scientific events, workshops, conferences, etc. at both the national and the international levels in all the areas and topics covered by computational mechanics; and
- Contribute and promote French excellence in this research at the international level through its connection with its international counterparts, mainly ECCOMAS and IACM.
What is your role at CSMA?
I was elected president of CSMA six years ago, and, assisted by a very active board, we decided to push forward many actions initiated by previous presidents and boards, in particular:
- The creation of a high quality journal, using an open access format, Advanced Modeling and Simulation in Engineering Sciences (AMSES);
- Turn the spotlight on young researchers by creating a junior-group within the association and giving them space to grow and develop;
- Be active in the organization of international workshops and conferences (we have put in a bid to organize the world conference on computational mechanics in 2020, as we represent the entire French community in mechanics and also the German association of computational mechanics) and (iv) play a vital role in international associations like ECCOMAS and IACM.
How does Advanced Modeling and Simulation in Engineering Sciences (AMSES) support CSMA’s goals?
AMSES contributes to disseminate excellent research works from all round the world, it contributes to promote French excellence in this area and it proves the international dimension of our association, its activity and its maturity. Because these interests were considered of major importance, CSMA supports the journal from a financial point of view by paying part of the article processing fees.
How would you describe the development of open access in the field of computational and structural mechanics?
AMSES was, as far as we know, the first international journal in computational mechanics published in an open access format
AMSES was, as far as we know, the first international journal in computational mechanics published in an open access format, with a really outstanding editorial board (truly international) and with an Editor-in-Chief who is highly recognized and appreciated internationally (this point was very important, a key point for ensuring the success of an adventure like that). Then, being the first, we had to confront the culture clash, and communicate well to explain the advantages of this new way of publishing, in which authors remain the owners of their works and they pay in order to reach everyone for free… It is easy to understand, in the end. However, the bad influence of (too) many bad quality journals under the open access format created some resistance at the very beginning. Thanks to the efforts of the editorial board, the Editor-in-Chief, and the association, we can testify today to the success of AMSES with many contributions of very high quality coming in every day…
Do you have anything else you’d like to add?
We would like to thank Springer, and in particular Nathalie Jacobs, for her constant support and valuable comments. We are also grateful to Springer for their sensitive handling of the fees in special and justified cases. The involvement of Springer is very much appreciated by both the journal committees and the CSMA association.
