Who was behind the Sunrise initiative?

“The ini­tia­tive to cre­ate the SUNRISE Euro­pean uni­ver­si­ty alliance came from the rec­tor of the Tech­nis­che Uni­ver­sität (TU) Ilme­nau (Ger­many), who pro­posed to his trust­ed part­ners that they join a con­sor­tium being set up as part of the Euro­pean Union’s lat­est call for pro­pos­als on Euro­pean uni­ver­si­ty alliances. UTC-Com­pieg­ne was already work­ing close­ly with TU Ilme­nau and the Lib­era Uni­ver­sità di Bolzano (Italy) through the Eras­mus+ SUSEE (Sus­tain­able Stu­dent Entre­pre­neur­ship) project, which focus­es on sus­tain­able entre­pre­neur­ship and stu­dent inno­va­tion. This strong coop­er­a­tion nat­u­ral­ly led to a con­ver­gence of visions around a struc­tur­ing alliance. As soon as I had tak­en up my posi­tion as Direc­tor of UTC, at the end of 2022, Joan­na Daaboul, UTC’s Direc­tor of Inter­na­tion­al Rela­tions, and I seized this oppor­tu­ni­ty to work with TU Ilme­nau and oth­er part­ners to devel­op a joint pro­pos­al. Despite a very tight sched­ule – the call for projects closed in 2023 – we have active­ly con­tributed to defin­ing the alliance’s strate­gic ori­en­ta­tions. UTC has brought its own spe­cif­ic vision to the table: that of a medi­um-sized uni­ver­si­ty of tech­nol­o­gy, strong­ly root­ed in its ter­ri­to­ry, focused on respon­si­ble inno­va­tion, tech­nol­o­gy trans­fer and sup­port for eco­log­i­cal, dig­i­tal and soci­etal transitions”.

Would you say that this summit was a success?

“Absolute­ly “yes”. First of all, there is an incred­i­ble atmos­phere and I find that in the few months since the alliance was formed, very strong bonds have been forged and friend­ships have emerged between peo­ple… There is a real close­ness between the peo­ple involved, which is the key to the suc­cess of alliances. If peo­ple only get togeth­er to work with­out any human inter­ac­tion, the sit­u­a­tion will not last. The pos­i­tive ener­gy in the amphithe­atre dur­ing those three days was incred­i­ble. This was not­ed by the author­i­ties present, includ­ing the Direc­tor Gen­er­al for High­er Edu­ca­tion and Pro­fes­sion­al Inte­gra­tion, the Vice-Chan­cel­lor for High­er Edu­ca­tion and Research, the Direc­tor of Eras­mus+, the Direc­tor Gen­er­al of Cam­pus France along­side rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the city of Com­pieg­ne and the Hauts-de-France Region”.

What actions or objectives were defined at the summit?

In a very short time, we pro­duced a detailed map of region­al train­ing and pro­fes­sion­al skill needs, pre­sent­ed at the alliance sum­mit. This exer­cise responds to one of SUN­RISE’s major ambi­tions: to design joint and inno­v­a­tive train­ing pro­grammes in order to respond more effec­tive­ly to the spe­cif­ic eco­nom­ic, social and indus­tri­al speci­fici­ties of each ter­ri­to­ry where our uni­ver­si­ties are locat­ed, while iden­ti­fy­ing gaps and as yet unsat­is­fied needs. This approach forms the basis of SUN­RISE’s net­work­ing activ­i­ties. The aim is to use this shared analy­sis to devel­op joint pro­grammes based on the pool­ing of our insti­tu­tions’ exper­tise and resources, in order to pro­vide con­crete, tai­lored and sus­tain­able respons­es to the devel­op­ment chal­lenges fac­ing Euro­pean territories.

MSD