Insti­tut­ed before the health cri­sis dis­rupt­ed their orga­ni­za­tion, UTC’s Sum­mer and Win­ter schools offered in Com­piègne or abroad with­in the frame­work of uni­ver­si­ty part­ner­ships, have been relaunched in 2023, start­ing in July 2023, with the Vir­tu­al Real­i­ty for Dig­i­tal Art Cre­ation sum­mer school, fol­lowed by the Win­ter School Food Engi­neer­ing Sci­ence, an inter­na­tion­al school in food engi­neer­ing and nutri­tion fund­ed by the Sor­bonne Uni­ver­si­ty Alliance to study food sci­ence and food for­mu­la­tion linked to bet­ter nutri­tion, eight schools have since attract­ed 115 stu­dents. Here’s an update from Joan­na Daaboul, the uni­ver­si­ty’s Direc­tor for Inter­na­tion­al Relations.

What proves so attractive about the Summer and Winter schools?

They enable us to estab­lish and nour­ish the link between our research and our teach­ing, to cre­ate col­lab­o­ra­tions and to show­case our tech­no­log­i­cal plat­forms, among UTC’s strong points. It also helps us to stand out from the crowd when it comes to research. Some coun­tries and uni­ver­si­ties do not offer out­go­ing inter­na­tion­al mobil­i­ty for a full semes­ter of study and this can be com­pli­cat­ed for stu­dents. Sum­mer or Win­ter schools offer them a short-form of mobil­i­ty. They offer both an edu­ca­tion­al and a cul­tur­al expe­ri­ence. The exchange of stu­dents, despite the dif­fer­ences in mobil­i­ty for­mat (short or long) between uni­ver­si­ties, helps to bal­ance flows, cre­ate links with part­ner uni­ver­si­ties, high­light­ing the attrac­tive­ness of France, pro­mot­ing UTC and French cul­ture. It’s an enrich­ing, vir­tu­ous circle.

What feedback do you get from these schools?

The stu­dents think the under­ling projects are great. At the end of each school, we do a sat­is­fac­tion sur­vey and every time we get very pos­i­tive and encour­ag­ing feed­back. The Vir­tu­al Real­i­ty for Dig­i­tal Art Cre­ation, set up by Indi­ra Thou­venin, which took place in 2023 and again in 2024, wel­comed thir­teen stu­dents from Tatung Uni­ver­si­ty in Tai­wan in 2023. The stu­dents appre­ci­at­ed both the teach­ing approach, which mix­es lec­tures with prac­ti­cal work and the cul­tur­al vis­its to Com­piègne, Pier­re­fonds and Paris. Thanks to this school, we were able to obtain free out­go­ing mobil­i­ty places for our students.

Sum­mer and Win­ter schools for­mal­ize links with the Sor­bonne. For exam­ple, the inter­na­tion­al school in Food Engi­neer­ing and Nutri­tion pro­posed by Claire Rossi, UTC’s Pres­i­dent and Direc­tor, uni­ver­si­ty pro­fes­sor and head of the Food Sci­ence tech­nol­o­gy plat­form, is a col­lab­o­ra­tion with Sor­bonne Uni­ver­si­ty as part of the Sor­bonne Uni­ver­si­ty Alliance. The school stud­ies nutri­tion­al aspects and strate­gies for replac­ing fats and sug­ars with opti­mized for­mu­la­tions pro­vid­ing fibre, pro­tein, etc., with the aim of improv­ing over­all nutri­tion. Twelve stu­dents, two of them inter­na­tion­al, took part. For the 2025 edi­tion, we invit­ed our part­ners from the Sun­rise Euro­pean alliance. This school, for exam­ple, high­lights not only our research and teach­ing inno­va­tion, but also our strong links with Sor­bonne Uni­ver­si­ty and our part­ners in the Sun­rise Alliance.

These schools also rep­re­sent a lever for strength­en­ing our strate­gic inter­na­tion­al part­ner­ships. For exam­ple, Cécile Legal­lais of UTC’s BMBI ‑bio­me­chan­i­cal and bio­engi­neer­ing) lab­o­ra­to­ry, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Éric Leclerc and in part­ner­ship with the Onco­l­ille Insti­tute and the Uni­ver­si­ty of Tokyo, is orga­niz­ing the SMMIL‑E Win­ter School for novices in bio­mi­cro­engi­neer­ing, to cov­er the main con­cepts relat­ed to bio- and microtech­nolo­gies and organs-on-chips sys­tems. This gen­er­ates activ­i­ty, col­lab­o­ra­tions and oppor­tu­ni­ties to devel­op our col­lab­o­ra­tions. They cre­ate new oppor­tu­ni­ties and raise the pro­file of our aca­d­e­m­ic research. This was also the case for the Leego school launched by pro­fes­sor Fah­mi Bedoui, in charge of the chair in nanos­truc­tured mate­ri­als [chal­LEnges and oppor­tu­ni­ties in con­nect­ing lenGth and time scales in nanO-struc­tured mate­ri­als] and UCB at Berke­ley (Ca).

What do they involve?

The Sum­mer and Win­ter schools focus on a train­ing theme or project, or offer inten­sive French lan­guage cours­es last­ing from one to four weeks. The sub­jects are approved by UTC, like any oth­er course and oper­ate accord­ing to the same rules as oth­er cours­es. They earn ECTS cred­its and include the­o­ret­i­cal cours­es, prac­ti­cal work, exper­i­ments and assess­ments. Cul­tur­al vis­its, dis­cov­ery days in our region and gas­tro­nom­ic out­ings in Paris enrich the train­ing. Some are open to every­one, while oth­ers are ded­i­cat­ed to a spe­cif­ic partner.

How is all this organized and managed?

The Inter­na­tion­al Rela­tions Depart­ment or the teach­ing and research staff sub­mit projects to finance these schools. This may be in a part­ner­ship with the Sor­bonne Uni­ver­si­ty Alliance. Some are financed by stu­dent fees, but this is not the dom­i­nant prac­tice. The Depart­ment for Inter­na­tion­al Rela­tions or the lab­o­ra­to­ry man­ages accom­mo­da­tion, food, logis­tics… It’s reas­sur­ing for the stu­dent. We work in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Crous, a key UTC part­ner. Teach­ing costs are often financed by UTC or by project. Stu­dents only have to pay for trans­port between their home coun­try and France. Inter­na­tion­al coor­di­na­tors act as a link to for­mal­ize projects, make con­tacts, cre­ate part­ner­ships… We work with lec­tur­er-cum-research sci­en­tists who sug­gest sub­jects for study. I think that if I had to sum up how it’s set up, I’d say that it’s a strong col­lab­o­ra­tion between the Depart­ment for Inter­na­tion­al Rela­tions, the Train­ing and Ped­a­gogy Depart­ment, the lec­tur­er-cum-research sci­en­tists and var­i­ous UTC departments.

IL