Prof. Claire Rossi, Direc­tor of UTC, Prof. Christophe Col­let, Direc­tor of UTT-Troyes and Prof. Ghis­lain Mon­tavon, Direc­tor of UTBM (Belfort-Mont­be­liard), joint­ly pre­sent­ed the UT Group’s basic iden­ti­ty val­ues at a press con­fer­ence held in Paris in Decem­ber 2024 and co-signed a com­mon char­ter to this end.

On Decem­ber 10, 2025 Claire Rossi (UTC), Christophe Col­let (UTT-Troyes) and Ghis­lain Mon­tavon (UTBM­Belfort- Mont­be­liard), the three direc­tors of the Uni­ver­si­ties of tech­nol­o­gy (UT), signed the UT Group char­ter. This marks an impor­tant step in strength­en­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion between Groupe UT mem­bers. “Our uni­ver­si­ties, embody­ing the “third way” of high­er edu­ca­tion, have posi­tioned them­selves, since 1972 with the birth of the first UT (viz. UTC) as cat­a­lysts of inno­va­tion, train­ing in engi­neer­ing and research, a com­mu­ni­ty car­ry­ing human­ist val­ues”, empha­sizes Claire Rossi, Pres­i­dent & Vice- Chan­cel­lor of UTC. The group of uni­ver­si­ties of tech­nol­o­gy is posi­tioned as a dynam­ic com­mu­ni­ty of edu­ca­tion, research and inno­va­tion, unit­ing the strengths of these estab­lish­ments to meet cur­rent and future chal­lenges in an eth­i­cal and respon­si­ble man­ner. Exchanges with­in the UT Group are prov­ing to be very pos­i­tive, dri­ven by a strength­ened col­lab­o­ra­tive dynam­ic. The teams at the var­i­ous UTs are increas­ing­ly involved in a dynam­ic process, shar­ing as they do com­mon objec­tives, demon­strat­ing a real syn­er­gy. “My two coun­ter­parts, Claire Rossi and Ghis­lain Mon­tavon and I are unan­i­mous: togeth­er we are stronger than if act­ing apart. In an uncer­tain con­text, this uni­ty enables us to speak with a more pow­er­ful and coher­ent voice, notably through coor­di­nat­ed and struc­tured com­mu­ni­ca­tion,” assures Christophe Col­let. The UT group enables us to change scale by bring­ing togeth­er a larg­er num­ber of stu­dents, PhD doc­tor­al stu­dents and alum­ni, while devel­op­ing an even wider net­work of part­ner­ships with companies.”

A unique and valuable synergy in the academic landscape

This con­sor­tium makes it pos­si­ble to car­ry out large-scale projects that would not be fea­si­ble on a sin­gle estab­lish­ment basis. Cross-dis­ci­pli­nary research projects encour­age inno­va­tion and col­lab­o­ra­tion between the var­i­ous UTs. Inter­na­tion­al­ly, ini­tia­tives such as UTSEUS and part­ner­ships in Africa illus­trate the group’s abil­i­ty to engage in shared projects, con­tribut­ing to a glob­al aca­d­e­m­ic and tech­no­log­i­cal net­work. “This col­lab­o­ra­tion not only rein­forces ped­a­gog­i­cal excel­lence, but also the abil­i­ty to respond to con­tem­po­rary tech­no­log­i­cal chal­lenges, while train­ing tomorrow’s engi­neers. UTBM stands out for its res­olute­ly inno­va­tion-ori­ent­ed posi­tion­ing. In this respect, the inte­grat­ed “CRUNCH” scheme, deployed since 2017, illus­trates per­fect­ly this ambi­tion, pro­mot­ing a cross-dis­ci­pli­nary and col­lab­o­ra­tive approach. UTBM has also invest­ed in steer­ing and deci­sion-mak­ing tools. For almost a decade now, it has been devel­op­ing sophis­ti­cat­ed data ware­hous­es and high-per­for­mance indi­ca­tors to opti­mize inter­nal man­age­ment. These imple­men­ta­tions are ful­ly shared with­in the UT net­work,” adds Ghis­lain Mon­tavon, who believes that belong­ing to this net­work of uni­ver­si­ties of tech­nol­o­gy enhances the vis­i­bil­i­ty and rep­u­ta­tion of each estab­lish­ment. “Indeed, the ‘UT’ col­lec­tive brand is a guar­an­tee of qual­i­ty and exper­tise, rec­og­nized both nation­al­ly and inter­na­tion­al­ly. This recog­ni­tion attracts the best tal­ents in both stu­dents and pro­fes­sors and arous­es the inter­est of lead­ing indus­tri­al and insti­tu­tion­al partners”.

A group committed to the dynamics of European universities and AI

UTT is com­mit­ted to the dynam­ics of Euro­pean uni­ver­si­ties, act­ing as AI coor­di­na­tor of the EUT+ Alliance, the Euro­pean Uni­ver­si­ty of Tech­nol­o­gy, and became involved in the dynam­ics of Euro­pean uni­ver­si­ties at a very ear­ly stage. Today, Euro­pean cours­es are already avail­able to stu­dents, rein­forc­ing the inter­na­tion­al scope of our cours­es. UTC has also become a mem­ber of the SUNRISE alliance of Euro­pean uni­ver­si­ties since this year. Christophe Col­let adds: “One of our cur­rent key areas of reflec­tion also con­cerns the impact of AI (arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence) on engi­neer­ing edu­ca­tion and train­ing. Through Groupe UT, we are work­ing to train engi­neers in the thought­ful and eth­i­cal use of AI, to sup­port teacher-researchers in inte­grat­ing AI into their teach­ing meth­ods, and to define the key skills need­ed to antic­i­pate and respond to tomor­row’s tech­no­log­i­cal chal­lenges.” It’s worth remem­ber­ing that the UT Group estab­lish­ments car­ry out ambi­tious, first-rate research. It makes a sig­nif­i­cant, even dis­rup­tive, con­tri­bu­tion to sci­en­tif­ic and tech­no­log­i­cal advances for eth­i­cal and respon­si­ble progress,” con­cludes Claire Rossi. We fos­ter cre­ativ­i­ty in stu­dents and research sci­en­tists and engi­neers by stim­u­lat­ing trans­dis­ci­pli­nary and inter­cul­tur­al approach­es. But we do not neglect to cul­ti­vate the free­dom to exper­i­men­ta­tion in order to encour­age inno­v­a­tive, ambi­tious, even dis­rup­tive approach­es, up to and includ­ing the launch­ing entre­pre­neur­ship ventures.”

KD