At the end of 2021, the stu­dents elect­ed to the Con­seil des Études et de la Vie Uni­ver­si­taire (CEVU), with the help of the Bureau de la Vie Etu­di­ante (BVE), imple­ment­ed the “par­tic­i­pa­to­ry bud­get” project result­ing from the Con­tri­bu­tion de Vie Etu­di­ante et de Cam­pus (CVEC). With a bud­get of 15 000 euros, the projects select­ed were sub­mit­ted to the stu­dents’ vote in December.

After study­ing their eli­gi­bil­i­ty and fea­si­bil­i­ty, accord­ing to the CVEC themes (recep­tion, social and health sup­port, cul­ture, sport, pre­ven­tion and health edu­ca­tion), 9 projects were cho­sen with­in the frame­work of the 2022 par­tic­i­pa­to­ry bud­get. All of them will be imple­ment­ed dur­ing 2023.

“For exam­ple, we have val­i­dat­ed the UTSafe project, which offers first aid train­ing in men­tal health. Anoth­er action con­sists of installing veg­etable bins and com­posters in the stu­dent house and pot­ted plants in the Ben­jamin Franklin build­ing. Anoth­er idea is based on rais­ing aware­ness as to water issues and anoth­er is to install a glass board, known as a light board, at UTC to cre­ate and present videos for edu­ca­tion­al pur­pos­es,” begins Sacha Benar­roch-Lelong, 22, stu­dent rep­re­sen­ta­tive at the CEVU since Novem­ber 2021 and a stu­dent in com­put­er engi­neer­ing, arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence and data sciences.

Anoth­er win­ning project is that of the UTC asso­ci­a­tion, Veloc, which wants to pro­vide stu­dents with a car­go bike to trans­port goods and also with safe­ty equip­ment to improve the mobil­i­ty of every­one by bike.

“It is very pleas­ant to realise the real pow­er of deci­sion of the stu­dents in their stu­dent life through an approach such as the par­tic­i­pa­to­ry bud­get,” says Sacha Benar­roch-Lelong. It puts us on an equal foot­ing with the stu­dents, the lec­tur­ers and the admin­is­tra­tion of our engi­neer­ing school. It is also inter­est­ing to under­stand how UTC works beyond its teaching/research aspects. For the next edi­tion of the par­tic­i­pa­to­ry bud­get, we will have to wait until next Novem­ber 2023. By then, some new and hope­ful­ly excel­lent ideas will germinate.