UTC’s Foun­da­tion for Inno­va­tion sup­ports the devel­op­ment of UTC: sup­port­ing, enhanc­ing, financ­ing and pro­mot­ing inno­va­tion devel­op­ment ini­tia­tives that serve edu­ca­tion and cam­pus life. It also sup­ports a num­ber of stu­dent associations.

The UTC mod­el is also based on the dynam­ic rich­ness of a dense com­mu­ni­ty life, which offers a for­ma­tive fac­tor for stu­dents and their future pro­fes­sion­al lives. The UTC Foun­da­tion for Inno­va­tion sup­ports this com­mu­ni­ty life by pro­vid­ing one-off finan­cial sup­port for projects ini­ti­at­ed and man­aged by asso­ci­a­tions in the fields of sol­i­dar­i­ty, CSR (cor­po­rate social respon­si­bil­i­ty) and tech­nol­o­gy clubs. «The Foun­da­tion is keen to ensure that projects embody UTC’s val­ues, its social and human­ist role in Soci­ety and that they inte­grate as far as pos­si­ble the pil­lars of sus­tain­able devel­op­ment, its envi­ron­men­tal, social and eco­nom­ic dimen­sions. For exam­ple, we sup­port school projects such as ‘Formul’UT’, whose main objec­tive is to take part in the ‘For­mu­la Stu­dent’ com­pe­ti­tions orga­nized in 2024 in France and Italy and thus pro­mote French engi­neer­ing. We also sup­port the aca­d­e­m­ic careers of stu­dent-engi­neers through schol­ar­ships for excel­lence and inter­na­tion­al influ­ence at British, Cana­di­an and Amer­i­can uni­ver­si­ties that are strate­gic part­ners for UTC,» explains Sylvie Lemon­nier-Morel, Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al of the UTC Foun­da­tion for Inno­va­tion. Raphaël Pey­ron­net, Pres­i­dent of the Team UTé­Cia asso­ci­a­tion, also receives sup­port. «We’re devel­op­ing and build­ing an ener­gy-effi­cient auto­mo­bile pro­to­type with the aim of tak­ing part in the Shell Eco Marathon, an inter­na­tion­al com­pe­ti­tion where the objec­tive is to cov­er the max­i­mum kilo­me­tres with one litre of petrol. The Foun­da­tion also gives us the vis­i­bil­i­ty we need to find partners.»

BERI scholarships

The UTC Foun­da­tion for Inno­va­tion sup­ports the university’s lev­els of excel­lence and inter­na­tion­al out­reach through a fund of Excel­lence and Inter­na­tion­al Influ­ence Schol­ar­ships, sup­port­ed by numer­ous alum­ni donors. Damien Souf­flet, 23, was a stu­dent at UTC, major­ing in Mech Eng with the elec­tive spe­cial­ty PIL (Inte­grat­ed Pro­duc­tion and Logis­tics), from Feb­ru­ary 2029 to June 2023, when he was able to go to Cran­field Uni­ver­si­ty in Eng­land dur­ing his fifth aca­d­e­m­ic year. «I was matric­u­lat­ed at t h e School of Man­age­ment and took the MSc Pro­cure­ment & Sup­ply Chain Man­age­ment, which was the next log­i­cal step after my cours­es at UTC. Although the BERI schol­ar­ship only cov­ers 10% of the tuition fees for the year in the UK, it was very nice to be sup­port­ed by his school via the Foun­da­tion, which is doing cru­cial work to enable stu­dents to dream of ambi­tious inter­na­tion­al projects, at a time when UTC via the DRI is devel­op­ing its net­work of dou­ble degree part­ner­ships,» he assures us. It’s a chance to out­reach inter­na­tion­al­ly and take advan­tage of the best schools to give your­self a spring­board as soon as you get your two degrees.» Damien Souf­flet has been in Mon­tre­al since Jan­u­ary, study­ing for a DESS in Busi­ness Admin­is­tra­tion at HEC, and also work­ing part-time as a tac­ti­cal buy­er for Actoran, a con­sult­ing firm.

From solidarity-oriented grocery …

The indus­tri­al founders of the Foun­da­tion, Saint- Gob­ain and Sopra Ste­ria, were very keen to sup­port the EPI asso­ci­a­tion, the Com­piègne stu­dent gro­cery store set up in 2013. It pro­vides all stu­dents who feel the need with week­ly access to fresh and dry food­stuffs, as well as hygiene prod­ucts, in exchange for a semes­ter sub­scrip­tion of 11 euros. It oper­ates main­ly with and for the ben­e­fit of UTC but it is planned to expand through­out the Com­piègne com­mune. At present, the asso­ci­a­tion has around ten mem­bers on its board, plus a dozen vol­un­teers involved in col­lect­ing and dis­trib­ut­ing prod­ucts. The gro­cery store’s main sup­pli­er is the Banque Ali­men­taire de l’Oise (the Oise depart­ment food­bank), which deliv­ers a large quan­ti­ty of prod­ucts to the EPI premis­es every Tues­day morn­ing. «The Foun­da­tion sup­ports our asso­ci­a­tion by enabling us to expand and ren­o­vate our premis­es with new refrig­er­a­tors to hold more fresh pro­duce for our ben­e­fi­cia­ries. We are count­ing on the Foun­da­tion, its patrons and donors, to sup­port us in our future devel­op­ment, so that we can best help stu­dents. Stu­dent inse­cu­ri­ty is a sub­ject we hear more and more about, but is an issue that i s far from b e i n g resolved,» empha­sizes M a n u e l Ack­er, Pres­i­dent of EPI.

… to the development of the arts

Anoth­er exam­ple is MET, “On Monte une Expo Tem­po­raire [We put on a tem­po­rary exhi­bi­tion], an asso­ci­a­tion set up in July 2023 by UTC engi­neer­ing stu­dents to orga­nize tem­po­rary visu­al art exhi­bi­tions in Com­piègne. In these pro­duc­tions, mem­bers show­case a vari­ety of forms of artis­tic expres­sion: paint­ing, sculp­ture, pho­tog­ra­phy, video, text and any oth­er mate­r­i­al medi­um that can con­vey ideas and emo­tions. «The Foun­da­tion sup­port­ed MET when we want­ed to mount our first art exhi­bi­tion in autumn 2023. We were sup­port­ed because of our social respon­si­bil­i­ty val­ues and because we intro­duce a nov­el vision of engi­neer­ing. This spring, we had an exhi­bi­tion project of a dif­fer­ent nature, as the artists were no longer just UTC and UTT (Troyes) under­grads and “UT-Bohemi­ans”. The idea was to lay a foun­da­tion stone for a Groupe UT project and the Foun­da­tion believed in us a sec­ond time. But the Foundation’s sup­port goes beyond a sim­ple dona­tion. We are sup­port­ed in devel­op­ing our strat­e­gy to find spon­sors,» explains Manon Gar­cia, Pres­i­dent of the MET asso­ci­a­tion, who oppor­tune­ly reminds us that dona­tions to the Foun­da­tion from com­pa­nies, alum­ni and pri­vate indi­vid­u­als are tax-free. Dona­tions that make sense towards the UTC Foun­da­tion for lnno­va­tion, a link between UTC and Soci­ety to build tomorrow’s world.

KD