As of Sep­tem­ber 2025, UTC will offer a new course enti­tled “Design, Uses and Tech­no­log­i­cal Research” with­in the Human­i­ties and Cre­ative Indus­tries Master’s degree pro­gramme. From the start of the 2025 aca­d­e­m­ic year, the first intake of some fif­teen stu­dents will be trained in issues relat­ed to the inter­ac­tions between humans and their nat­ur­al, social and tech­ni­cal environment.

The new course ‘Design, Uses and Tech­no­log­i­cal Research’ relates to under­stand­ing the issues relat­ed to inno­va­tion and com­plex­i­ty. The idea is to enable stu­dents to broad­en their spec­trum of atten­tion, their vista, to bet­ter under­stand the process­es of tech­ni­cal “con­sti­tu­tiv­i­ty” in a diver­si­ty of envi­ron­ments. We do not choose the stance of tech­ni­cal neu­tral­i­ty or sim­ple “solu­tion­ism” but con­sid­er that when tech­no­log­i­cal issues are tack­led by humans, it has effects on them indi­vid­u­al­ly and col­lec­tive­ly,” explains Olivi­er Gapenne, Direc­tor of the UTC Costech lab­o­ra­to­ry since last Sep­tem­ber. Estab­lished in 1993, the Costech research unit explores the ques­tions relat­ed to tech­nol­o­gy, to the sci­ence of human pro­duc­tion, with the aim of improv­ing design. The inter­na­tion­al­ly renowned philoso­pher Bernard Stiegler found­ed the lab­o­ra­to­ry and devot­ed his work to the ques­tion of tech­nol­o­gy and its impli­ca­tions for the under­stand­ing of con­tem­po­rary Soci­ety. “The objec­tive of the Mas­ter’s pro­gramme, under the direc­tion of Flo­rent Lev­il­lain, is to pro­vide stu­dents with new skills in design cen­tred on the human expe­ri­ence, lead­ing them to mas­ter the process of design­ing and pro­duc­ing inno­v­a­tive tech­no­log­i­cal prod­ucts and ser­vices.” It should be not­ed that the Human­i­ties and Cre­ative Indus­tries pro­gramme offers two cours­es at UTC, one of which is part of a dual cur­ricu­lum in part­ner­ship with ESAD in Amiens, UTC con­tribut­ing its knowl­edge in the field of cog­ni­tive sci­ences applied to design and user expe­ri­ence. Stu­dents enrolled in this “design and expe­ri­ence cre­ation” course will fol­low the DNSEP (graph­ic design options) cours­es at the ESAD site for two years, as well as cer­tain cours­es offered in the new course at UTC.

Relations between humans, technology and society

The UTC-Costech lab­o­ra­to­ry, a place of inter­dis­ci­pli­nar­i­ty, now oper­ates with five pro­gramme teams whose work is based on the com­mon foun­da­tion of a shared the­sis attribut­ing a con­stituent role to tech­nol­o­gy. The research top­ics of nar­ra­tive, vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty, bifur­ca­tions, inter­sub­jec­tiv­i­ty and cog­ni­tion give rise to pro­grammes that enable their study in con­cep­tu­al, the­o­ret­i­cal, con­crete, exper­i­men­tal and even oper­a­tional terms. This research is also direct­ly con­nect­ed to envi­ron­men­tal con­cerns about sus­tain­abil­i­ty and soci­etal con­cerns about the sources of social frac­ture. “Our team is part of the Tech­nol­o­gy, Soci­eties, Human­i­ties (TSH) UTC depart­ment, and sev­er­al of its mem­bers are par­tic­u­lar­ly involved in the Hutech course, which teach­es how to direct tech­no­log­i­cal devel­op­ment serv­ing high human and soci­etal val­ues,” con­cludes Olivi­er Gapenne. The aim is to work togeth­er in a cross-dis­ci­pli­nary and col­lec­tive way, includ­ing with oth­er UTC research enti­ties, so that engi­neer­ing stu­dents acquire a real appetite for tech­no­log­i­cal research. The need in this area is immense and many ques­tions need to be explored in depth. UTC-Costech has no inten­tion to con­tent itself with aca­d­e­m­ic research and is imple­ment­ing real-life research for the ben­e­fit of numer­ous actors in Society.”

KD