Patrick Dupin is a mem­ber of Saint-Gobain’s Man­age­ment Com­mit­tee as the Group’s Deputy Man­ag­ing Direc­tor and Man­ag­ing Direc­tor for the North­ern Europe Region. He is also Pres­i­dent of the UTC Foun­da­tion for Inno­va­tion and, since 2023, a mem­ber of the university’s Aca­d­e­m­ic Board of Direc­tors. He will be God­fa­ther to the grad­u­a­tion cer­e­monies of the class of 2023.

Patrick Dupin – who has spent the bet­ter part of his career at Saint-Gob­ain, hav­ing joined this CAC40 Group in 2000 — empha­sis­es the his­toric links between the UTC and the group. He is pas­sion­ate about the issues of train­ing and inno­va­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the glass divi­sion, since, he says, «glass man­u­fac­tur­ing pos­es numer­ous chal­lenges in terms of inno­va­tion, whether in the smelt­ing process or in the prod­uct itself». It is only nat­ur­al that links have been forged between the Group’s indus­tri­al sites in the Com­pieg­ne area and the University. 

And what is the nature of these links? «We’ve worked togeth­er to find indus­tri­al solu­tions, but we’ve also wel­comed stu­dents for intern­ships at our indus­tri­al sites and young engi­neer­ing grad­u­ates for var­i­ous posi­tions,» explains Patrick Dupin. And what is the under­ly­ing idea behind the UTC Foun­da­tion for Inno­va­tion? «It was cofound­ed in 2018 by Saint-Gob­ain, Sopra Ste­ria, Poclain, UTC and UTC Alum­ni, with the aim of pro­vid­ing resources for the Uni­ver­si­ty so that it can devel­op research projects and con­tin­ue to inno­vate. Of course, our aim is to widen this cir­cle of patron­age», he explains. 

What is his role as Chair­man of the Foun­da­tion? «Well, it is not exclu­sive­ly focused on Saint- Gob­ain. As the Foun­da­tion Chair­man, I rep­re­sent all man­u­fac­tur­ers. It’s about giv­ing UTC the vision of indus­tri­al­ists, high­light­ing the chal­lenges they may face and respond­ing to any needs that may emerge. It’s also about enabling UTC to define research pro­grams that may be of inter­est to indus­try. Final­ly, it’s about mak­ing sure that UTC and indus­try can work togeth­er on Chair projects or the devel­op­ment of research projects, as well as encour­ag­ing indus­try to work togeth­er,» he emphasizes. 

And what will be your mes­sage to stu­dents as their God­fa­ther? «The most impor­tant thing for me is to be able to inspire them. I want to show them the val­ue of our com­mit­ment to indus­try, but also, through the exam­ple of the Foun­da­tion, show them the impor­tance of build­ing bridges between indus­try and acad­e­mia by call­ing on the inven­tive­ness of stu­dents and teacher-researchers. It’s also about giv­ing them a taste for indus­try at a time when the dri­ve to rein­dus­tri­al­ize is under­way and encour­ag­ing them to take part in this adven­ture. Final­ly, it’s about telling them that the chal­lenges of tomor­row: decar­boniza­tion, eco­nom­ic cir­cu­lar­i­ty, preser­va­tion of the envi­ron­ment and bio­di­ver­si­ty, etc., deserve their com­mit­ment and that future tech­nolo­gies can help us find sus­tain­able solu­tions,» con­cludes Patrick Dupin.