The net­work approach, under way for a year now, began in com­pli­ance with the wish to see joint strate­gic views and actions under­tak­en by the French Uni­ver­si­ties of Tech­nolo­gies (UTs), viz., UTC (Com­piègne), UTBM (Belfort-Mont­be­liard) and UTT (Troyes).

“We are liv­ing in a com­pet­i­tive world, where strength lies in unit­ed forces”, recalls Prof. Alain STORCK, Pres­i­dent and Vice-Chan­cel­lor of UTC-Com­piègne and Pres­i­dent of the UT Group. “When uni­ver­si­ty com­pe­ti­tion is inter­na­tion­al as it is today and comes under end­less leg­is­la­tion changes; we have every inter­est to join forces, but not to merg­er. It’s a ques­tion of crit­i­cal mass”. Over and above a site log­ic, encour­aged by the Gov­ern­ment, the UT Group also defends a brand-name, a spe­cial train­ing mod­el, a trade-mark almost. The UT Group must pro­mote this iden­ti­ty. “Our trade-mark”, deplores Prof. Chris­t­ian LERMINIAUX, Pres­i­dent and Vice-Chan­cel­lor of UTT-Troyes and UT Group Trea­sur­er “does not enjoy the noto­ri­ety it mer­its. It was becom­ing a mat­ter of urgency to posi­tion our­selves in a net­work for­ma­tion, if only to share “best prac­tice” not­ed in each of our insti­tu­tions over the past few years. The UT Group must facil­i­tate the reha­bil­i­ta­tion of the mod­el, must con­tin­ue to devel­op it and progress continuously.”

Collaborative logic

We all have in mind the abort­ed plan to merg­er the 3 UTs. “The con­di­tions nec­es­sary for suc­cess were just not there; notwith­stand­ing, the dynam­ics of mov­ing clos­er togeth­er are under way, in a col­lab­o­ra­tive for­mat, with joint, shared projects in view”, adds Prof. STORCK. The statu­to­ry reg­u­la­tions of the UT Group were adopt­ed, end 2012 with the home office of the Group locat­ed in Paris; 3 del­e­gate gen­er­als were appoint­ed to ensure cor­rect func­tion­ing of the Group.

Six thematic Standing Committees

The UT Group will progress as a func­tion of the find­ings and rec­om­men­da­tions of 6 Stand­ing Com­mit­tees, each of which has a road map to define: train­ing and ped­a­gogy; research and inno­va­tion; cam­pus life (undergraduate/graduate); devel­op­ment and finance; best prac­tice and com­mu­ni­ca­tions. Each Com­mit­tee has a mod­er­a­tor, 6 vol­un­teers from staff and stu­dent ranks, a ref­er­ee direc­tor (one of the UT pres­i­dents). “We are mak­ing sure that there is a coheren­cy between the work achieved in the Com­mit­tees and the over­all Group strat­e­gy. WE could in fact cre­ate more Com­mit­tees”, adds Prof. STORCK “but our aim was not to get dis­persed just as we were start­ing”.

Pres­i­dents STORCK and LERMINIAUX, for exam­ple, are the ref­er­ees for the Stand­ing Com­mit­tee on Devel­op­ment and Finance, the remit of which is very wide-reach­ing: Should we envi­sion cre­at­ing a 4th UT? How could we diver­si­ty our finan­cial resources? What should be our inter­na­tion­al stance and pol­i­cy? “The UT Group”, under­lines Pres­i­dent LERMINIAUX “has every rea­son to build up inter­na­tion­al part­ner­ships” and Pres­i­dent BROCHET adds “Gain­ing an engi­neer­ing degree is some­thing that attracts more and more coun­tries and com­pa­nies round the world. The French UT Group car­ries a ‘clout’ that is more effi­cient than many oth­ers to con­vince new part­ners to join forces with us”.

Enhanced attractiveness

Could the same log­ic, we sur­mise, be applied to our rela­tion­ships with the eco­nom­ic spheres? “Increased noto­ri­ety of the French Uni­ver­si­ties of Tech­nolo­gies Group (UT) will rein­force and enhance our lev­el of attrac­tive­ness. We could the think of shar­ing our means, to pro­pose new oppor­tu­ni­ties, along the lines of the Com­plex­ci­ty joint research pro­gramme UTC-Com­piègne has ini­ti­at­ed with UTSeuS (Shang­hai)” says Chris­t­ian LERMINIAUX.

Anoth­er path to explore, in the words of Pres­i­dent Alain STORCK, this could con­sist in our “Posi­tion­ing our­selves to study sub­jects that are trans­verse to the three French UTs, a case in hand here being trans­port sys­tems, that we can col­lec­tive­ly val­orise in France and inter­na­tion­al­ly”.

Look­ing at shar­ing means and skills, the three UT Pres­i­dents iden­ti­fied sev­er­al paths, one of which is ped­a­gogy. “We should put our heads togeth­er to renew our ped­a­gog­i­cal think­ing, inte­grat­ing approach­es made pos­si­ble by ICTs. “Teach­ing has now become more inter­ac­tive and stu­dent-focused”, under­lines Pas­cal BROCHET. “We could like­wise bring the alum­ni net­works clos­er, or facil­i­tate trans­fer moves from one UT to anoth­er for stu­dents who wish to fol­low giv­en cours­es. We might even, why not, set up a joint Foun­da­tion. Let’s dream our future into real­i­ty!”