During her visit to the Maison de la Création et de l’Innovation (MaCI) on the UGA campus in Grenoble in early July, Sylvie Retailleau, Minister of Higher Education and Research, presented the 17 winners of the second wave of the call for projects “ExcellenceS in all its forms”, launched as part of France 2030.
The “Structural Innovation” component of the future investment program, PIA 4, aims to perpetuate the ecosystem of higher education, research, and development and to this end, has devoted 800 million euros to the APP “ExcellenceS in all its forms.
The latter aims to recognize excellence in the plurality of territories but also in the diversity of actors, universities or grandes écoles, which justifies the “S” of ExcellenceS. The aim of the program is to support higher education and research institutions that have an ambitious transformation project for their site in implementing their own strategy, based on their territorial dynamics and their specific needs. It will thus enable them to reach the best international standards in their field(s) of excellence.
The PPA has been staggered in three waves to allow everyone to respond and to develop their project. The first wave allowed the selection of 15 projects that were presented on November 30th, the second wave winners are 17 in number.
The 17 winners of the second wave
Among these 17 projects, two are ultra-marine. Overseas territories are indeed formidable territories of innovation and creativity, preserving their specificities appears important.
The two overseas projects
The University of Guyana project
The AIBSI project (Amazon Institute of Biodiversity and Sustainable Development)
14.1 million: ” building an Amazonian model around biodiversity and sustainable innovation.
With the creation of an Amazon Institute of Biodiversity and Sustainable Development, the ambition of the University of French Guiana is to bring together all the players in innovation to create a true site identity around biodiversity and sustainable innovation in the Amazon.
By adopting an integrated approach to research and innovation through interdisciplinary research projects, the project will play, at the interface between the academic world and the socio-economic world, a role of catalyst of territorial dynamics, tending towards an Amazonian model of human development and green economic growth, which preserves the immense local biodiversity.
The project of the University of French Polynesia
NĀRUA – Insularity and education in French Polynesia, a transforming challenge:
“Reinventing higher education in the multi-island Pacific territory” endowed with €11.1M
The University of French Polynesia intends to ambitiously reinvent undergraduate education, in line with the key sectors of the Polynesian economy. It also wishes to assume its role as a French-speaking institution structuring relations with the key regions of the Pacific zone (Hawaii, New Zealand, Australia) and to promote Polynesian languages and cultures.
This approach will include lifelong learning through research-based training adapted to the needs of public and private executives. NĀRUA will thus put the university’s expertise at the service of Polynesian decision-makers, but also of any territory concerned by insularity, remoteness or sustainable development issues.
Other projects
The project of the PolytechnicUniversity of Hauts-de-France
EURO-TELL – New European model of experiential learning based on transition: ” Graduate schools to meet societal challenges around three thematic hubs”, with a budget of €11 million.
To meet the challenges of transition by drawing on the expertise of local stakeholders, the Université Polytechnique des Hauts-de-France is proposing to set up three thematic hubs for transition, to which three interdisciplinary European graduate schools will be attached:
- Aging and disability; cities, territories and smart mobility;
- Industry of the future with a positive impact on the environment and humanity;
- A Think-to-Do-Lab inspired by the think tank model.
Master’s and doctoral programs with a strong scientific, professional and European focus will be developed in the graduate schools.
The University of Reims Champagne Ardennes (URCA) project
EXEBIO – Excellence in Sustainable Bioeconomy: ” Bioeconomy as a driver of research and for the territory”, with a budget of €21.7 million.
The ambition of the EXEBIO project is to recognize the excellence of the University of Reims Champagne Ardennes (URCA) and its academic and territorial environment in bioeconomy research and training on a national and international scale.
EXEBIO is based on the creation of an International Institute for Sustainable Bioeconomy, which is carrying out a pioneering policy of organization and structuring of research in bioeconomy. The project is structured around 3 priority axes:
- An ambitious policy for research excellence;
- A European graduate school aiming at a high level of training, anchored on research and connected to the socio-economic world;
- A partnership with the industrial world for a genuine innovation policy around the bioeconomy.
The University of Grenoble Alpes (UGA) project
GATES – Attractiveness and Excellence at Grenoble Alpes University: ” Strengthening the attractiveness of research, human and social sciences and undergraduate studies”, with a budget of €27.6 million.
The Université Grenoble Alpes (UGA) aims to strengthen its visibility, its attractiveness and its signature site in research and education, around three main axes:
- To increase the international attractiveness of research by relying on exceptional research infrastructures (major international instruments, House of Creation and Innovation) to accelerate the development of ongoing research collaborations with international partner networks;
- To establish the UGA as a pioneering institution in the field of data-driven approaches and to develop the visibility and attractiveness of the humanities and social sciences;
- To create an attractive, differentiated and personalized undergraduate offer, adapted to the diversity of our students’ needs, with, on the one hand, curricula that prepare them for entry into the job market and, on the other hand, curricula that orient them towards long term studies, strongly based on research.
The University of Rennes 1 project
IRIS-E – Interdisciplinary Research and Innovative Solutions for the Environmental Transition: ” Interdisciplinarity and Innovation as Drivers of the Environmental Transition ” with a budget of €21.4 million.
The IRIS-E project aims to develop innovative solutions to change the balance between production activities and the environment, in order to contribute to the sustainability of resources, the protection of ecosystems and the preservation of human health.
It will rely on the increase of available data, the development of modeling capacities to visualize human-nature interdependencies, co-construct innovative production methods (agroecology, eco-design of materials) and propose relevant actions articulating public policies, legal norms, economic incentives and participatory approaches.
Such an ambition implies a profound transformation of practices, centered on interdisciplinarity and participatory sciences.
The University of Lorraine project
LUE E&T – Lorraine University of Excellence for Education and Territories: ” The transformation of undergraduate education and a new model for relations with the territories”, with a budget of €15.6 million.
Through this project, Lorraine University of Excellence (LUE) and its partners will strengthen their signature, defined around six societal challenges, by acting both internally on student training and externally on the link with the territories. Internally, each undergraduate student in all the university’s territories will be able to be made aware of entrepreneurship and research at an early stage, and will be required to meet the sustainable development objectives of LUE.
Externally, the establishment of a territorial university conference that brings together the Grand Est region, the rectorate, two metropolises, four departments and eleven local authorities, proposes a new model of territorial anchoring, in the service of an internationally recognized excellence.
The University of Artois project
MAIA – Mastering the applications of artificial intelligence: ” Explaining and gaining acceptance for artificial intelligence” with a budget of €10.9 million
The A2U alliance, which brings together three multidisciplinary universities, aims to develop original and generic research solutions to advance the formal explicability and societal acceptability of artificial intelligence, with a focus on three important areas for the Hauts-de-France region: health, chemistry and the environment.
The ambition is to further strengthen the excellence and attractiveness of the university’s research and training in the field of artificial intelligence and its applications, making this multidisciplinary subject a flagship theme of the A2U alliance.
The University of Orléans’ project
MINERVE – Strengthening an integrative research and training approach to meet international societal and economic challenges: ” An ambitious graduate program to structure the sciences”, with a budget of €13.8M.
The University of Orléans plans to build two thematic clusters, one in science and technology enhanced by data sciences, the other in sport, rehabilitation and physical activity sciences. With modular and interdisciplinary undergraduate and graduate programs, it aims to develop a new model of graduated program of excellence, reconciling territorial anchoring and internationalization, to promote the emergence of a generation of scientists capable of innovation.
The Paris Sciences and Letters University (PSL) project
ONEPSL IMPACT – From academic excellence to societal impact: “Transforming the training offer and the relationship with former students”,with a budget of €23.9 million
The ambition of the Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL) is to enable its students to combine academic excellence and impact, in order to prepare them to become agents of change. To do this, it wants to transform the training offer and the relationship with former students.
It will offer more forms of experiential and project-based learning, training immersed in research, and greater transdisciplinarity starting at the undergraduate level. It will involve its alumni in teaching, internships, and many other training and research activities with PSL undergraduate and graduate students. Its graduates will benefit from a lifetime registration at PSL and will have access to a customized continuing education offer.
The Claude Bernard Lyon 1 University project
SHAPE-MED – Structuring a “one health” approach to personalized medicine in Lyon: ” Creating a health hub within a multidisciplinary, research-intensive university” , with a budget of €28.1M.
Drawing on the leading industrial ecosystem for innovation in health in France and the second largest university hospital system, Claude Bernard Lyon 1 University and its partners are ambitiously responding to the challenges of medicine and “one health” by creating a health hub of excellence, connecting public and private players and strengthening the hospital-university-research continuum through an integrated HR strategy.
Lyon Hub Santé 2030 will have a governance structure that involves all research and innovation players in an integrated research approach. It will benefit from a partnership with the Ottawa Health Innovation Hub.
The Sorbonne University project
SOUND – Sorbonne University for a new commitment: deploying the collective contribution to societal challenges. Theproject “Responding to the challenges of three major transitions: society, health and resources for a sustainable planet”, with a budget of €30.7M.
With the SOUND project, Sorbonne University and its partners wish to strengthen their capacity to collectively contribute to the challenges of three major transitions: Changing Societies, Languages and Cultures, Global Approach to Health, Resources for a Sustainable Planet.
The project includes an academic dimension, with support for research, training and innovation projects developed with a view to contributing to the three major programs, and an institutional dimension, aiming to strengthen interactions with academic and non-academic partners, in order to make knowledge and results widely accessible.
The Institut Polytechnique de Paris project
STEP 2 – Science and Technology at Polytechnique Paris: “An Institute to meet scientific, economic and social needs”, with a budget of €27.9 million.
The Institut Polytechnique de Paris and its partners plan to build a socially responsible integrated science and technology institute to meet scientific, economic and social needs, focusing on research areas with a strong European and global impact: health engineering, new materials, digital technologies, and energy for climate.
The project includes 5 initiatives:
- The creation of the interdisciplinary Engineering for Health center;
- The creation of the interdisciplinary center IP Paris Materials for Society (new materials);
- The IP Paris Future for Computing initiative (digital technologies);
- The upgrading of the interdisciplinary center Energy for Climate;
- The innovation strategy of IP Paris.
The Sciences Po Paris project
TIERED – Transforming research and teaching to meet the challenges of democracies through interdisciplinarity: ” Transdisciplinarity to produce new knowledge”, with a budget of €15.9 million.
By fully assuming its social responsibility, Sciences Po Paris wants to meet the challenges of environmental and digital transitions. To this end, the school wishes to train the students who will accompany these transformations in the future, by establishing a lasting interdisciplinary dialogue between the humanities and social sciences and other scientific disciplines, and by developing a new policy of disseminating and promoting knowledge to inform public debate and policy.
New frameworks will make this possible: the Forum of Transformations, the Policy Factory and the Innovation Pavilion, and new structuring partnerships will stimulate initiatives on societal challenges.
The Toulouse Midi-Pyrénées Federal University project
TIRIS – Toulouse Initiative for Research Impact on Society: ” Three challenges for a world-class research-intensive university” with a budget of €38.3M.
With TIRIS, the Université Fédérale de Toulouse Midi-Pyrénées is embarking on an institutional transformation to create a world-class research-intensive university, based on disciplinary excellence and on interdisciplinary and inter-science dialogue (STS and SHS).
The focus is on three key societal challenges, in line with local public and private sector priorities: health and well-being; global change and its impact on societies; and sustainable transitions.
In doing so, the project will contribute to the renewal of public policies and respond to the growing expectations of younger generations.
The University of Corsica project
UNITI – University for the transformation of Mediterranean island territories: “Creating a tourism’Lab in cultural industry”, with a budget of €7.1 million.
The UNITI project aims to make the University of Corsica the catalyst of territorial dynamics around two axes of development: natural resources (with the development of platforms and the experimentation of sustainable conservation solutions) and cultural resources (with the creation of a tourism’Lab in cultural industry, to reinvent a relationship with the territory in its heritage, cultural and socio-economic components).
The project also aims to strengthen the structuring towards society in connection with local and international partners.
The project of the University Savoie Mont Blanc (USMB)
USMB SHINE – USMB’s strategy for a better impact on the ecosystem and society: ” Strengthening the university’s commitment to the territories and contributing to environmental, industrial and societal transitions” , with a budget of €8.7 million.
With the USMB SHINE project, Université Savoie Mont Blanc wants to contribute more to environmental, industrial and societal transitions around 3 priority areas: Human-Environment Interactions, Services and Industries of the Future, Cultural Heritage and Changing Societies.
To do this, it intends to structure research and teaching in an interdisciplinary manner, to disseminate and promote knowledge to accelerate the development of companies and territories, and to create thematic research and teaching hubs with all stakeholders. It thus intends to decompartmentalize research and training activities and organize scientific and academic activities in a spirit of open innovation.
The third and final wave was launched on July 12 and will close on November 30, 2022.
Translated from Présentation des 17 lauréats de la seconde vague de l’appel à projet « ExcellenceS sous toutes ses formes »
