Olivi­er Ginez, Direc­tor Gen­er­al of High­er Edu­ca­tion and Pro­fes­sion­al Inte­gra­tion, attend­ed the first sum­mit of the SUNRISE alliance, one of the lat­est Euro­pean alliances, on Sep­tem­ber 23, 20225 These Euro­pean alliances were estab­lished fol­low­ing the French Pres­i­den­t’s speech at the Sor­bonne in 2017.

These alliances had to com­ply with one main direc­tive: they must con­sist of ‘a net­work of uni­ver­si­ties from sev­er­al Euro­pean coun­tries, set­ting up a pro­gramme where­by each of their stu­dents will study abroad and take cours­es in at least two languages’.

By 2025, no few­er than 65 alliances had been cre­at­ed, includ­ing SUNRISE, the lat­est addi­tion. These alliances bring togeth­er 570 Euro­pean insti­tu­tions, includ­ing 64 French insti­tu­tions. France is thus the sec­ond most rep­re­sent­ed coun­try in terms of the num­ber of insti­tu­tions involved (64), behind Ger­many (67). What are the advan­tages of such alliances? “The French Min­istry in charge of High­er Edu­ca­tion strong­ly sup­ports these alliances, which it finances to 50%, par­tic­u­lar­ly as part of the France 2030 plan, the ben­e­fits of which, six years on, are prov­ing extreme­ly pos­i­tive. They have boost­ed our insti­tu­tions at Euro­pean lev­el, stim­u­lat­ed the mobil­i­ty of both stu­dents and lec­tur­er-research sci­en­tists, con­sol­i­dat­ed exist­ing part­ner­ships, with research being inter­na­tion­al in nature, pro­vid­ing them with a for­mal frame­work so that our insti­tu­tions can engage in long-term research projects,” explains Olivi­er Ginez.

SUNRISE: a very young alliance

What makes SUNRISE dif­fer­ent from oth­er alliances? “SUNRISE is indeed a very young alliance. How­ev­er, the new­ly for­malised net­work is based on long-stand­ing foun­da­tions, and its rel­e­vance can be gauged by what SUNRISE is built on. The added val­ue of SUNRISE can be mea­sured by the spe­cif­ic char­ac­ter­is­tics of its part­ner uni­ver­si­ties. They are medi­um-sized and root­ed in a giv­en ter­ri­to­ry. With a strong focus on engi­neer­ing edu­ca­tion, they are large­ly ori­ent­ed towards eco­nom­ic issues and con­tribute, through their exper­tise, to eco­nom­ic and indus­tri­al devel­op­ment as well as tech­nol­o­gy trans­fer to local busi­ness­es. Dis­cus­sions are cur­rent­ly under­way to cre­ate a Euro­pean engi­neer­ing label,” he points out. The Com­mis­sion des Titres d’Ingénieur (CTI), a French inde­pen­dent body respon­si­ble for eval­u­at­ing all French engi­neer­ing schools (and for­eign schools on request) for their accred­i­ta­tion, was one of the found­ing mem­bers of the Euro­pean Net­work for Accred­i­ta­tion of Engi­neer­ing Edu­ca­tion (ENAEE) in 2006, which cre­at­ed the EUR-ACE label. “Among the exist­ing alliances, SUNRISE is an asset at a time when dis­cus­sions are under­way for a Euro­pean engi­neer­ing degree label. Indeed, EUR-ACE’s objec­tives include the award­ing of a Euro­pean label for engi­neer­ing pro­grammes, improv­ing the qual­i­ty of train­ing, estab­lish­ing agree­ments for the recog­ni­tion of degrees and, final­ly, increas­ing the aca­d­e­m­ic mobil­i­ty of stu­dents and the pro­fes­sion­al mobil­i­ty of engi­neers. In this sense, SUNRISE, which com­pris­es nine part­ners with recog­nised exper­tise, will ulti­mate­ly enable the estab­lish­ment of a com­mon frame­work for train­ing, edu­ca­tion­al inno­va­tion and the shar­ing of best prac­tices, among oth­er things,” he explains.

SUNRISE and regional dynamics

What is the role of these uni­ver­si­ties of tech­nol­o­gy in region­al dynam­ics? “When we refer to “a region”, we are talk­ing about a liv­ing envi­ron­ment, an eco­nom­ic area with busi­ness­es and jobs to be cre­at­ed and/or safe­guard­ed. All SUNRISE part­ners are root­ed in a region with spe­cif­ic char­ac­ter­is­tics. “A uni­ver­si­ty such as UTC, for exam­ple, root­ed as it is in the Greater Com­piègne area and, beyond that, in the Hauts-de-France Region, can­not ignore the eco­nom­ic, envi­ron­men­tal and soci­etal chal­lenges fac­ing its Region. A uni­ver­si­ty like UTC, for exam­ple, root­ed in the Com­piègne area and, beyond that, in the Hauts-de-France region, can­not ignore the eco­nom­ic, envi­ron­men­tal and soci­etal issues spe­cif­ic to this region. In this way, we can have our eyes on Europe while keep­ing both feet firm­ly plant­ed in our region. It is no coin­ci­dence that the first SUNRISE sum­mit, focused on defin­ing future actions, is being held in Com­piègne. It also proves that these alliances are not just con­cep­tu­al projects, but that the mem­ber uni­ver­si­ties and oth­er tech­nol­o­gy inten­sive part­ners are a real asset in meet­ing the needs of their region,” says Olivi­er Ginez. What are UTC’s par­tic­u­lar­ly strong fea­tures? “UTC has many qual­i­ties that can ben­e­fit oth­er part­ners. It is an agile uni­ver­si­ty with high-qual­i­ty engi­neer­ing pro­grammes com­bin­ing, inter alia, edu­ca­tion­al mod­u­lar­i­ty and inter­dis­ci­pli­nar­i­ty, dynam­ic research and con­stant­ly evolv­ing train­ing, strong links with indus­try and, final­ly, strong encour­age­ment of entre­pre­neur­ship. It is a uni­ver­si­ty that is par­tic­u­lar­ly focused on tran­si­tions, whether they be eco­log­i­cal, dig­i­tal or ener­gy-relat­ed. I also note – and this is excel­lent news for the future of research — that more and more engi­neers are turn­ing to research activ­i­ties. Hav­ing an insti­tu­tion that ensures this con­tin­u­um is an oppor­tu­ni­ty for SUNRISE, and I hope that it will play a lead­ing role with­in it,” he con­cludes.

MSD