Sophie Béjean is the recent­ly appoint­ed new Rec­tor of the Lille Acad­e­my, Rec­tor of the Hauts-de-France aca­d­e­m­ic Region and Chan­cel­lor of the uni­ver­si­ties. Let’s meet her!

Rec­tor Sophie Béjean has been rec­tor of the Hauts­de- France aca­d­e­m­ic Region and Rec­tor of the Lille Acad­e­my since March. Pri­or to that, she was Rec­tor of the Occ­i­tanie aca­d­e­m­ic region and the Mont­pel­li­er acad­e­my (2020–2025), and before that, Rec­tor of the Stras­bourg acad­e­my (2016–2020). She arrives in the Hauts-de-France region, which is dense­ly pop­u­lat­ed, diverse and con­trast­ed, with more rur­al areas. “It is also a Region of con­trasts in terms of eco­nom­ic activ­i­ty, indus­tri­al­i­sa­tion and region­al projects sup­port­ed by Gov­ern­ment depart­ments. It is also a rich land­scape for high­er edu­ca­tion and research, with large met­ro­pol­i­tan uni­ver­si­ties, uni­ver­si­ties locat­ed in rur­al areas such as the coast or at Valen­ci­ennes, and the Uni­ver­si­ty of Tech­nol­o­gy of Com­pieg­ne with all its spe­cif­ic fea­tures,” observes Sophie Béjean, who, in her role as region­al aca­d­e­m­ic Rec­tor, is respon­si­ble for sup­port­ing action in schools, edu­ca­tion, voca­tion­al train­ing and career guid­ance, as well as sup­port­ing high­er edu­ca­tion and research. “My main objec­tives are to ensure that the State’s action in the field of edu­ca­tion, high­er edu­ca­tion and research sup­ports the devel­op­ment of the Region. All while work­ing close­ly with stake­hold­ers, engag­ing in dia­logue with elect­ed offi­cials and sup­port­ing Gov­ern­ment departments.”

Remaining focussed on regional development

The new Rec­tor is very famil­iar with uni­ver­si­ties of tech­nol­o­gy, which are unique insti­tu­tions in that they are both aca­d­e­m­ic insti­tu­tions and engi­neer­ing schools (aka “grandes écoles”). Due to their sta­tus, they must also be research ori­ent­ed. They there­fore have research lab­o­ra­to­ries, often in col­lab­o­ra­tion with major research organ­i­sa­tions. “And this speci­fici­ty is also marked by the fact that they have very close rela­tion­ships with eco­nom­ic stake­hold­ers due to the inno­va­tion chal­lenge that is spe­cif­ic to these insti­tu­tions. At UTC, I dis­cov­ered a very dynam­ic uni­ver­si­ty with a strong inno­va­tion pol­i­cy, com­mit­ted to research, inno­va­tion and rela­tion­ships with eco­nom­ic stake­hold­ers. At Sor­bonne Uni­ver­si­ty, this clus­ter alliance of uni­ver­si­ties and insti­tu­tions is focussed on projects of the high­est lev­el of excel­lence. And today, the uni­ver­si­ty is mind­ful of its role in the Region and of con­tribut­ing to its eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment,” says the Rec­tor, who dis­cov­ered UTC to be a high­ly inno­v­a­tive insti­tu­tion in terms of teach­ing, with the pos­si­bil­i­ty of build­ing a tai­lor-made course. “This is par­tic­u­lar­ly promis­ing giv­en the strong human­i­ties com­po­nent of these pro­grammes, but it is also quite attrac­tive to young women, as UTC has the high­est per­cent­age of women in its engi­neer­ing pro­grammes. It is also a uni­ver­si­ty that is atten­tive to stu­dent life and sup­ports cul­tur­al and sports asso­ci­a­tions. Not to men­tion its inter­na­tion­al reputation.”

Training engineers as agents of social cohesion

UTC has also devel­oped a strate­gic real estate plan and sup­port­ed its research and inno­va­tion strat­e­gy through this plan, organ­is­ing its build­ings in such a way that they meet its objec­tives of restruc­tur­ing research and struc­tur­ing action towards areas of inno­va­tion in order to accom­mo­date var­i­ous high­lev­el tech­ni­cal plat­forms. “This had to be done in line with what is now required of all pub­lic actors, i.e., to respect sus­tain­able devel­op­ment issues so that build­ings are ener­gy effi­cient while pro­vid­ing com­fort for researchers, teacher-researchers and stu­dents, of course,” con­cludes the Rec­tor Béjean for whom train­ing engi­neers means train­ing pro­fes­sion­als who are capa­ble of man­ag­ing, doing so effi­cient­ly and evolv­ing through­out their careers. ’Today, uni­ver­si­ties in gen­era — and UTC in par­tic­u­lar — have a duty to pre­pare tomorrow’s cit­i­zens. In fact, the Min­istry of High­er Edu­ca­tion and Research has called for com­pul­so­ry train­ing for all stu­dents on envi­ron­men­tal and cli­mate issues to sup­port envi­ron­men­tal tran­si­tions poli­cies. And also train­ing on cit­i­zen­ship issues around the val­ues of the Repub­lic, so that, here too, with their knowl­edge and pro­fes­sion­al engi­neer­ing skills, they are atten­tive to these issues and become impor­tant play­ers in Society!”

KD