LACED provides access to huge amounts of data
December 11, 2012
A new laboratory has been operating at HEC Montréal since September: the Calculation and Data Mining Laboratory (LACED). With 10 servers and 17 workstations, the laboratory gives users remote access to huge quantities of data in economics, finance, marketing and other management fields and to specialized software for processing such data and performing scientific simulations and calculations.
Under the direction of Assistant Professor Erick Delage (Management Sciences), the LACED is an advanced laboratory dedicated mainly to multidisciplinary research by faculty
and graduate and postgraduate students. Research themes include distribution management and logistics, integrated risk management, governance, macroeconomics, mathematical finance, data mining and energy and environmental management.
Many research projects at the LACED are being and will be conducted in co-operation with private- and public-sector partners, working on real-life management problems. By simplifying collaboration between researchers and the industry, the LACED infrastructure will make it possible to quickly transfer knowledge and apply the best management practices in Quebec. Some forty highly regarded researchers have already joined the laboratory.
In addition to the majority of research chairs at HEC Montréal, a number of institutional partners and research groups are involved in the LACED: the Institut de finance mathématique de Montréal (IFM2), the Inter-university Centre on Risk, Economic Policy and Employment (CIRPÉE), the Centre for Research on E-finance (CREF), the Group for Research in Decision Analysis (GERAD) and the Interuniversity Research Centre on Enterprise Networks, Logistics and Transportation (CIRRELT).
The LACED was created thanks to a $1.2 million grant under the Leading Edge Fund of the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI). The Quebec government will be matching the CFI contribution, and other partners will also be contributing. The project has been directed by Full Professor Michèle Breton.