The Centre Informatique de Recherche (CIR) has been the joint data processing centre of the INRETS and the Laboratoire Central des Ponts et Chaussees (LCPC) since 1970. The evolution of data processing demands in the LCPC, and now in the LPC, is therefore one of the major factors in the evaluation of the Centre's own development. Micro-computers constitute a phenomenon that has profound consequences for this Centre, since work traditionally performed in major centres is now being distributed to disseminated facilities. Nevertheless, centres such as the CIR can still render a wide range of services in the context of a general interconnection of our facilities. These services relate primarily to products for which centralized pooling is basically inevitable: data bases, mailing facilities, software libraries, etc. They also relate to work for which a configuration exceeding the normal possibilities of disseminated facilities proves necessary: computer-assisted design and development resources, expert systems, etc.