EUROPE: RAISING ARTS ET MÉTIERS’ PROFILE AND DEVELOPING PROJECTS

WHAT IS THE ENHANCE ALLIANCE?

The start of the “European university” initiative dates back to a 2017 speech by French President Emmanuel Macron at the Sorbonne, in which he expressed his ambition to create an innovative, competitive, attractive European higher education and research area.

To that end, the ENHANCE alliance was created in 2020 with 7 founding members. It now includes 10 leading European technological universities, most of whom Arts et Métiers already collaborates with for academic exchanges, research projects, Erasmus+ and other programmes.

Out of all the existing European alliances, this one is best suited to the specific characteristics of our institution. We share the same vision: “Leading a responsible social transformation, empowering people to develop and use science and technology for the benefit of society and turn global challenges into valuable opportunities.”

Moreover, its research themes – which align with the priorities of the European Commission and the United Nations goals – are complementary to ours: digital transformation and artificial intelligence, sustainable cities and communities, and climate.

WHAT IS OUR STATUS IN THIS EUROPEAN UNIVERSITY?

For now, we are an associate partner since becoming a full partner is a long process. And each institution’s Board of Directors must be consulted.

This means that even though we won’t be able to benefit from the funding allotted to the alliances for the next four years, we will take full part in its activities, since funding for mobility (students, teaching, research, administrative and technical staff) is provided through the Erasmus+ programme.

This partner status opens up a multitude of opportunities for us. For example, we’ve already joined the “Joint Short-Term Offers” working group led by Warsaw University of Technology. Its aim is to determine how to award credit for short-term training.

We’ve also been invited to the alliance’s general assemblies. The next meeting is in Berlin in February.

This will help raise our profile in Europe and globally.

We hope to become a full partner by 2027.

WHAT TYPES OF PROJECTS WILL BE IMPLEMENTED WITH ENHANCE?

Arts et Métiers’ European strategy (education and research) aims to prioritise projects involving the alliance partner universities.

The “European Education Pathways” alliance programme gives students in the alliance the opportunity to take courses through physical and/or virtual mobility with credit recognition. Tools such as Erasmus+ can be used to fund such mobility.

And in terms of research, the Europe unit of the Office of Research and Innovation will support the development of research projects within the framework of European programmes, like Horizon Europe. Even before we received our official membership, the Europe unit, in coordination with the Office of Academic Affairs, successfully developed an “ERASMUS+ Key Action 2 - Cooperation among organisations and institutions” project entitled “Green Dilt” with two universities in the alliance: Delft University of Technology and Politecnico di Milano (more information).