Moving 19 higher education institutions to a new ¡°French Silicon Valley¡± on the edge of Paris sounds like a daunting task.
The creation of the University of Paris-Saclay¡¯s campus will cost €2 billion (?1.4 billion) and a government-funded €2.5 billion (?1.8 billion) extension of the Paris Metro will connect the high-tech hub to the centre of the French capital in 35 minutes.
However, Dominique Vernay, the president of Paris-Saclay, has bigger concerns than the infrastructure challenges involved in constructing the university¡¯s 1,300-acre campus over the next few years, namely how to get 19 fiercely independent organisations to pull together and move in the same direction.
¡°This requires a drastic change in the French mentality,¡± admits Vernay, a former technical director of Thales, a French multinational specialising in electrical products, and one of the world¡¯s largest defence contractors.
¡°Some of these institutions have a long history going back to the time of Napoleon, while others are much younger,¡± he says in an interview with Times Higher Education.
¡°They were not that keen to work together in the beginning, but they have taken steps over the past seven years to come together ¨C the commitment was to set up a common organisation.¡±
To this end, nine of France¡¯s most prestigious grandes ¨¦coles, such as the ?cole Polytechnique and the ?cole Normale Sup¨¦rieure, will work with less selective traditional universities, business schools and national research organisations at Paris-Saclay.
Within 10 years, 12,000 researchers and 70,000 students will be based at the Paris-Saclay campus, with the institution aiming to take its place among the world¡¯s top 10 universities by 2025.
However, does this cluster of outstanding, yet disparate, institutions brought together by the French government actually constitute a university? Vernay believes so, pointing out that master¡¯s degrees and doctorates taught by the constituent colleges are now issued in Paris-Saclay¡¯s name.
Concentrating the various institutions on a single site will enable Paris-Saclay to establish its identity, as well as allowing the different institutions to cooperate far better and extend the scope of their research, he adds.
¡°They will have bigger, much more diversified laboratories and be able to set up new research teams,¡± he says.
The Paris-Saclay project has initial funding of €7.5 billion (?5.9 billion). Part of this is a €1 billion (?720 million) endowment provided by the French government to encourage academic collaboration, and carving this income up among competing research interests may prove one of the toughest challenges.
¡°Some academics thought this extra money would simply be added to their budgets, but we are very strict with the applications [for the cash],¡± says Vernay.
The competition for funding will continue over the next decade to ensure that Paris-Saclay¡¯s staff produce the internationally excellent research that justifies the state¡¯s extraordinary outlay, he adds.
¡°Staff are not accustomed to this benchmarking, but they have accepted it is run this way,¡± he says. ¡°People have agreed to work together on a common plan which has global vision and they will be assessed on a regular basis,¡± he adds.
Paris-Saclay¡¯s proximity to a number of major French companies located southwest of Paris will also help the university to establish unrivalled links with industry, believes Vernay.
¡°About 300,000 high-level jobs in industry are located in this area, including those working for Airbus, Peugeot and Renault, whose design centre has about 20,000 designers there,¡± he says.
¡°These companies now understand they need to be near academia and we want to find new ways to interact with industry,¡± he adds.
In this respect, France¡¯s grandes ¨¦coles have a far better track record of working with industry than universities, he says.
¡°About 30 professorial chairs have been awarded by industry to our grandes ¨¦coles, so we need to extend those links to universities too,¡± he says.
Paris-Saclay is the grandest of several mega-universities being funded across France that are designed to encourage world-class research which can be quickly applied to the country¡¯s high-tech manufacturing and service sector. That goal is most likely to be achieved by the close cooperation of students, academics, researchers and industry, Vernay believes.
¡°Together they can do things that they cannot do on their own,¡± he says.
