ECIU — “Developing a European innovation culture”
The European Consortium of Innovative Universities (ECIU — UTC Compiegne being one of its Members — has been acting, for the past 15 years, as a catalyst for innovation in both industry and Society.
How can we develop a sufficiently ambitious European innovation policy? Why indeed should we seek to harmonise training and pedagogy in Europe? What format will tomorrow’s management and governance practice take, in terms of manpower employed by our Universities?… The Consortium is facing questions like these and others besides, since it (the ECIU) was created in 1997 with the objective “To develop a European culture of innovation and act as an ‘agent of change’ enhancing and promoting innovation in industry and in Society”, says current ECIU President Anne FLIERMAN. Today, there are no less than 13 Members in ECIU, most of whom are ranked in the top 50 European universities; ECIU aims at introducing and implementing novel teaching, training and research methods and practice, but first and foremost its objective is to promote European culture and innovation, through, for example, a new Research and Innovation Framework programme for the European Union, known as Horizons 2020, to which the Consortium is fully committed. UTC Compiegne, in fact, is the only French Member of ECIU and enjoys increasingly privileged contacts and exchanges with the other Members, witness the appointment of Professor STORCK in November 2012 — when the Consortium was celebrating its 15th anniversary on the premises of UTC Compiegne — to the seat of Vice-President ECIU. “The extent of the commitment of UTC Compiegne within ECIU has been clearly confirmed on several occasions in recent years”, adds Alain STORCK. “We have set up a series of international mobility and exchange training courses, in particular with TU Hamburg, Germany and the University of Linköping, Sweden. We also organised several summer (and winter) schools for already qualified engineers and PhD students.”
