Paris Brain Institute is proud to be celebrating 20 years of partnership with its first and longest-standing private funder: the watchmaking company F.P.Journe. This partnership, based on shared values of trust, loyalty and excellence, has seen F.P.Journe give over 2 million Euros to support the Institute’s work. This year, the company committed to a new multi-year investment that will support the strategic development of the RnD Unit: a facility that designs and prototypes innovative hardware solutions in response to specific requests from the Institute’s researchers. In recognition of this transformative gift, the facility will be renamed the RnD Unit F.P.Journe for the duration of the partnership.
The RnD Unit F.P.Journe: a facility dedicated to invention and innovation
In the course of their work, Paris Brain Institute’s 27 research teams are often confronted with highly specific, practical problems. In 2017, the Institute opened a FabLab: a workshop space in which researchers could test out new ideas in response to these problems. Today, with an ever-increasing demand for new hardware solutions from researchers, doctors and startups, the Institute aims to develop a comprehensive RnD Unit with specialized engineers and cutting-edge equipment. This Unit’s mission is to design and test innovative tools and resources that can enable scientific breakthroughs. In order to disseminate its ideas as widely as possible, including beyond the Institute, the RnD Unit prioritizes OpenSource sharing of its projects by making its prototype design sheets widely available online.
Since its creation in 2022 the RnD Unit has quickly proved its worth, with 50 collaborative projects completed or underway and a full diary for the year 2024. It is now vital that the Unit expands in order to meet the growing demand for more complex and ambitious projects. As a company that places innovation at the heart of its strategy, F.P.Journe is the perfect partner to support the RnD Unit’s expansion. Nurtured by this partnership, the RnD Unit F.P.Journe will be able to take on more ambitious projects and thus accelerate the transformation of research discoveries into concrete solutions for brain disorder patients.
Paris Brain Institute and F.P.Journe: a partnership that stands the test of time
It was back in 2004 that watchmaker François-Paul Journe first met Jean Todt, Paris Brain Institute’s Vice-President, who was at that time the Head of Ferrari. Mr. Todt shared with Mr. Journe his ambition to create a center of excellence dedicated to studying all aspects of the brain. He invited M. Journe to meet Professor Gérard Saillant, the visionary surgeon behind this shared dream. Inspired by Professor Saillant’s vision and by the Institute’s other Founder Members, Mr. Journe didn’t hesitate to offer his support to the project from a very early stage. Since this first gift, the partnership between Paris Brain Institute and F.P.Journe has flourished through many collaborations. Here are just a few.
2008: François-Paul Journe unveiled the Centigraph, a chronograph that can measure time up until 1/100th of a second, and was awarded the Aiguille d’Or prize at the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie in Geneva. Mr. Journe offered to develop a lasting means of supporting Paris Brain Institute through this new watch model, of which Jean Todt was the ambassador. Since 2008, 30% of the profits from the sale of every Centigraph watch continue to be donated to the Institute.
2016 : A unique Centigraphe Souverain edition, discreetly featuring Paris Brain Institute’s logo, was put up for auction at a charity gala organized at the Conciergerie de Paris. The hammer fell at €120 000 Euros, all of which was donated to the Institute.
2021 : F.P.Journe decided to support a project within the Institute’s « Big Brain Theory » program. This innovative program fosters collaboration for at least two years between researchers from different disciplines to explore original, ‘out-of-the-box’ ideas and open up new therapeutic avenues. The project supported by F.P.Journe, BBT Odana, focused on understanding the mechanisms of myelin repair in multiple sclerosis and the interplay between vascularization, myelin repair and the nervous impulse.
Today, F.P.Journe continues to support the Institute via the profits from the sales of Centigraph watches, as well as committing to a the new partnership around the RnD Unit F.P.Journe. Paris Brain Institute’s entire community is grateful to the company for their faith and trust over the years.
Just like an F.P.Journe watch, the human brain is a complex, sophisticated structure. One has to understand its mechanisms in order to prevent damage and in order to begin repairing it. As Paris Brain Institute’s longest-standing private funder, F.P.Journe is a key actor in our scientific and human adventure. I would like to offer my heartfelt thanks to Mr. Journe and his teams for their unwavering support and their commitment to the expansion of the RnD Unit F.P.Journe. Together, we are advancing the fight against brain disorders.
