To sup­port the imple­men­ta­tion of an ambi­tious action plan to strength­en research, teach­ing, inno­va­tion and part­ner­ships with the local, Euro­pean and inter­na­tion­al socio-eco­nom­ic world — is the ambi­tion of the Sun­rise alliance, which also strength­ens UTC’s influ­ence in its region.

The Euro­pean Union has select­ed 14 new Euro­pean uni­ver­si­ty alliances fol­low­ing the 5th and final ded­i­cat­ed Eras­mus+ call for pro­pos­als. UTC and its 8 part­ners have won the SUNRISE Alliance, Small­er Uni­ver­si­ties Net­work for Region­al Inno­v­a­tive and Sus­tain­able Evo­lu­tion. France is one of thir­teen high­er edu­ca­tion insti­tu­tions among the 130 Euro­pean win­ners of this call. In this con­text, the Alliance has been award­ed 14.4 mil­lion euros over four years. This fund­ing will sup­port the imple­men­ta­tion of an ambi­tious action plan aimed at strength­en­ing research, teach­ing, inno­va­tion and part­ner­ships with the local, Euro­pean and inter­na­tion­al socio-eco­nom­ic world. “The stakes of this Alliance project are high. SUNRISE is an alliance of Euro­pean uni­ver­si­ties that will enable us to high­light the role and actions of small uni­ver­si­ties, which occu­py a very impor­tant place, work­ing for devel­op­ment, inno­va­tion and sus­tain­abil­i­ty, at the heart of Euro­pean regions and in par­tic­u­lar with indus­tri­al com­pa­nies based in their ter­ri­to­ries”, assures Claire Rossi, Pres­i­dent, Vice-Chan­cel­lor and Direc­tor of UTC. “Through this new Euro­pean uni­ver­si­ty Alliance, UTC intends to fur­ther strength­en its impact at the heart of the Hauts-de-France Region.”

An alliance of smaller universities working at the heart of their territories

The SUNRISE Alliance pro­motes col­lab­o­ra­tion between acad­e­mia and indus­try to devel­op sym­bi­ot­ic mod­els with region­al­ly based indus­tri­al com­pa­nies. It also focus­es on inter­na­tion­al edu­ca­tion, pro­mot­ing the intro­duc­tion of inno­v­a­tive cur­ric­u­la and encour­ag­ing stu­dent mobil­i­ty. “These ele­ments have been hall­marks of UTC’s iden­ti­ty since it was estab­lished in 1972. Indeed, uni­ver­si­ties of tech­nol­o­gy have the par­tic­u­lar­i­ty of being locat­ed in medi­um-sized towns, yet are vis­i­ble and attrac­tive on a nation­al and inter­na­tion­al lev­el. More­over, the train­ing and research car­ried out at UTC are res­olute­ly focused on inno­va­tion and the devel­op­ment of respon­si­ble tech­nolo­gies to meet the major con­tem­po­rary chal­lenges fac­ing soci­ety and busi­ness”, the Pres­i­dent adds. Small uni­ver­si­ties, locat­ed in the heart of medi­um-sized towns and cities, face major chal­lenges, such as the loss of tal­ent or a low­er lev­el of attrac­tive­ness than uni­ver­si­ties locat­ed in large cities, with lim­it­ed resources and com­pe­ti­tion from larg­er insti­tu­tions. But they do play a major role in the attrac­tive­ness of their regions, and form an essen­tial link between acad­e­mia and Soci­ety, in direct prox­im­i­ty to the socio-eco­nom­ic envi­ron­ment of their ter­ri­to­ries. “The com­mon goal of the SUNRISE part­ners is to be seen as major play­ers in the trans­for­ma­tion of our regions, to make them more attrac­tive and com­pet­i­tive, and above all to work along­side oth­er local play­ers in meet­ing the chal­lenges fac­ing us, par­tic­u­lar­ly those of the triple tran­si­tion — envi­ron­men­tal, soci­etal and dig­i­tal”, con­cludes Joan­na Daaboul, lec­tur­er and direc­tor of Inter­na­tion­al Rela­tions at UTC, who, like the oth­er mem­bers of the alliance, is com­mit­ted to lead­ing this net­work of Euro­pean uni­ver­si­ties as coor­di­na­tor of the project for UTC.

The SUNRISE Alliance partners

• Ilme­nau Uni­ver­si­ty of Tech­nol­o­gy, Ger­many (Alliance Coordinator)
• Uni­ver­sité de tech­nolo­gie de Com­pieg­ne, France
• the Free Uni­ver­si­ty of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy
• the Uni­ver­si­ty of Infor­ma­tion Tech­nol­o­gy and Man­age­ment in Rzeszów, Poland
• the Euro­pean Uni­ver­si­ty Cyprus, Cyprus
• Mälardalen Uni­ver­si­ty, Sweden
• Uni­ver­si­ta Politec­ni­ca delle Marche, Italy
• « Dže­mal Bijedić » Uni­ver­si­ty of Mostar, Bosnie-Herzégovine
• the Poly­tech­nic Uni­ver­si­ty of Viana do Caste­lo, Portugal
• Cran­field Uni­ver­si­ty, one of UTC’s his­toric and strate­gic part­ners is also an asso­ciate mem­bre of the Sun­rise Alliance.

KD