Technological Sovereignty: IRT Saint Exupéry and the Defense Innovation Agency Launch a National High-Temperature Composites Sector

(traduction en anglais d’un communiqué en français)

Toulouse, February 18, 2026 — The Saint Exupéry Technological Research Institute (IRT) announces a major breakthrough with the COMPINNOV HT+ project, dedicated to the development of composite materials capable of withstanding extreme temperatures. Supported by the Defense Innovation Agency (AID), this large-scale program aims to strengthen French industrial sovereignty in strategic sectors such as aerospace, space, and defense. In just one year, the project has already achieved decisive technical milestones and laid the groundwork for a European advanced materials sector.

An Unprecedented Consortium Around IRT Saint Exupéry
As the lead, IRT Saint Exupéry plays a central role: bridging the academic world and industrial needs while orchestrating collaboration among players who had not previously worked together. The COMPINNOV HT+ project brings together a consortium representative of the entire value chain, from fundamental research to industrial application: Specific Polymers, STS, MS Composites, CEA, Liebherr, Safran, ArianeGroup, MBDA. This alliance unites both major contractors and innovative SMEs, ensuring that the value chain is driven by strategic needs while benefiting from the agility of smaller structures. This diversity of expertise accelerates the development of concrete solutions, ensuring that every stage is covered, from resin design to composite part manufacturing.

Defense Innovation Agency:

“The IRT model is ideal for bringing together scientific and industrial expertise around common goals. Relying on IRT Saint Exupéry has allowed us to combine their deep knowledge of the civilian and academic industrial fabric with our understanding of the defense industrial and technological base (BITD) and defense challenges, to converge on a credible and ambitious common roadmap. In a context where mastery of cutting-edge technologies is crucial for our sovereignty, this partnership is essential to secure France’s capabilities in aerospace, space, and defense.”

Jean-Christian Beucher, CEO of IRT Saint Exupéry
“The IRT is above all a state tool dedicated to developing advanced technology sectors. By bringing together academic and industrial players, large companies and SMEs, and creating synergies between the aerospace, space, and defense sectors, we aim to contribute directly toFrance’s technological and industrial sovereignty. This project is a perfect illustration of why IRT Saint Exupéry was created.”

Strategic Materials Capable of Withstanding Extreme Environments

Organic matrix composites have been widely used in the aerospace industry over the past decades, but their limited high-temperature resistance restricts their use in harsh environments.

Structural composites are traditionally based on carbon fiber structures and thermosetting matrices. Among them, epoxy resins dominate the market, due to the well-understood structure-property relationships and mastery of associated manufacturing processes.

However, these resins have an intrinsic continuous temperature resistance limit, set by the degradation threshold around 150°C. While alternatives have been developed in recent years, they remain constrained by various limitations, such as lack of technological maturity of products on the market, a too-narrow application range to ensure source viability, or supply difficulties incompatible with sovereignty objectives.

The resins developed in the COMPINNOV HT+ project are designed to meet the most severe constraints of aircraft and rocket engines, subjected to temperatures between 200 and 400°C. Under such conditions, materials must combine strength, lightness, and reliability to ensure system safety. The project’s main goal is to provide an alternative to metals (titanium alloys) and certain ceramic-matrix composites. Expected benefits include weight reduction of structures, elimination of thermal protection on some metal alloys, and structuring a European supply chain.

The first phase of the project, led by Specific Polymers, identified several candidate resins capable of meeting these constraints. These resins are currently undergoing extensive testing to assess performance, durability, and compatibility with composite manufacturing processes. Subsequent phases will optimize chemical formulations, explore different reinforcement combinations (notably carbon and glass), and verify reliability in representative operational environments. The ultimate goal is to manufacture industrial demonstrators, achieving a Technology Readiness Level (TRL) between 4 and 5, ensuring future deployment in aerospace and space programs.

Nicolas Cuvillier, R&T Theme Lead “New Materials,” Safran Composites
“The use of composites capable of withstanding very high temperatures is essential to optimize tomorrow’s aircraft engines. Today, only American materials meet requirements above 200°C, raising sovereignty and ease-of-use issues in civilian applications. The COMPINNOV HT+ project, supported by IRT Saint Exupéry and the French state, aims to develop a new, innovative high-temperature resin entirely produced in France. This project brings together chemists, manufacturers, and aerospace and defense industrialists, ensuring a national solution, easier to implement than current technologies. For Safran, a project member, this approach is perfectly suited and allows the creation of the first building blocks of a French excellence sector with broad and sustainable applications.”

Thibaut Lalire, Materials and Processes Engineer – Organic Matrix Composite Specialist, MBDA
“The maturation of high-temperature organic resin systems is a major development focus within MBDA to meet the needs of future concepts. The COMPINNOV HT+ project, led by IRT Saint Exupéry, accelerates the maturation of these resins thanks to the presence of actors from diverse sectors contributing their expertise. This project also promotes the development of a sovereign French phthalonitrile sector, securing material supply in defense, a critical aspect for MBDA.”

Technological Sovereignty and Independence
The project addresses a major strategic need: reducing France’s dependence on foreign countries for essential materials. The organic composite materials developed in the COMPINNOV HT+ project, thanks to their high specific properties, could offer a valuable alternative to titanium-based materials for parts operating in the 250–350°C temperature range. Additionally, some components used in civil aircraft engines, fighter jets, and rockets are made with high-temperature composites sourced overseas, subject to export regulations. To address these sovereignty challenges, the COMPINNOV HT+ project aims to establish an independent, European-controlled supply chain, allowing France to guarantee its industrial and military autonomy.

Corinne Dumas, Head of Materials, Components, and Environmental Risk Management, DGA:
“In addition to addressing a major sovereignty issue, this project has the advantage of bringing together major industrial integrators from both civilian and military sectors. In defense, volumes alone are insufficient for economic viability, which is why it is essential to integrate civilian actors: these synergies create sustainable and competitive sectors by broadening use cases while sharing risks, and meeting France’s strategic needs.”

Cedric Loubat, Founder and CEO, SPECIFIC POLYMERS
“Within the COMPINNOV HT+ consortium, SPECIFIC POLYMERS develops and produces resins with very high thermal stability, forming the first building block of the future French advanced composites sector. Our ambition is to contribute to France’s technological and industrial sovereignty, ensuring full control over material chemistry and preparing industrial production capabilities locally. This project embodies synergy between innovation, independence, and performance in support of major aerospace, space, and defense programs through 2030.”

About the Defense Innovation Agency
The Defense Innovation Agency (AID) leads France’s defense innovation policy within the Ministry of Armed Forces and Veterans Affairs. Founded in 2018 to coordinate all innovation initiatives within the ministry, its mission is to identify, fund, and support innovations likely to provide a strategic advantage to the armed forces, mobilizing the entire civil and military ecosystem.

About IRT Saint Exupéry
The Saint Exupéry Technological Research Institute (IRT) is a science, technology research, and industrial transfer accelerator for the aerospace and space industries, developing innovative, safe, robust, certifiable, and sustainable solutions. Its sites in Toulouse, Bordeaux, and Sophia Antipolis offer an integrated collaborative environment of engineers, researchers, experts, and PhD students from industrial and academic sectors for R&T projects and services based on technological platforms in four areas: advanced manufacturing technologies, greener technologies, methods & tools for complex systems development, and smart technologies.

Source: The Saint Exupéry Technological Research Institute