Training for transitions, continued

"The project we are currently working on focuses on three main priorities.

First and foremost, the objective is to provide cross-curricular and multidisciplinary content for all undergraduate students. The aim is to equip our students with fundamental skills and knowledge from the very start of their studies. This priority is perfectly in line with the request stated by the French Ministry in the autumn of 2022 in Bordeaux, and with the Ministry's recent climate-biodiversity and ecological transition action plan.

Secondly, we are particularly vigilant in ensuring that training students to overcome the challenges posed by transitions is at the very heart of all disciplines. It is in this sense that we wish to mobilise the teaching community in order to develop the content of disciplinary instruction. Today, these issues are at the heart of our society in all its dimensions.

Resolutely multidisciplinary, our university represents all facets of transitions, from mechanics to green chemistry, to public health, environmental law, eco-anxiety and the anthropological and sociological impacts. As experts in their disciplines, our lecturers are best placed to identify and transmit this knowledge capable of responding to the upheavals of our time.

Finally, the evolution of our society brings new skillsets and new professions. As a higher education and research institution, we must adapt by creating new courses and by positioning ourselves in certain disciplines in order to bridge the skills gap in certain key sectors. In order to meet the needs of the socio-economic world, it is therefore necessary to set up an initial and continuing training plan capable of meeting these new needs."

"We know that we can mobilise certain colleagues who are already involved in these subjects. Not all of them have waited for the training offer framework and the ministerial announcements to integrate environmental and societal issues into their teaching. This is the case, among others, of the teaching teams of the Multidisciplinary Cycle of Higher Education (Cycle pluridisciplinaire d'enseignement supérieur - CPES), the "Academic democracy" course unit, the SENSE Graduate Programme, the University Technical Diplomas, the Master degree in development economics or the "Decision making in an anthropocene context" programme for doctoral students and trainees in continuing education.

We also need to work on how we can engage students as they have a fundamental role to play. They are in demand, have very interesting ideas and are particularly concerned by the subject. In order to do so, we plan to call upon the transition ambassadors and student vice-presidents. Mechanisms such as Disrupt Campus are already in place, which offers students the opportunity to work in a professional situation in response to issues raised by players in the socio-economic world and linked to environmental, economic or societal transitions."

"In terms of pedagogical engineering, the Support Mission for Education and Innovation (Mission d’appui à la pédagogie et à l’innovation - MAPI) will provide its expertise in supporting the implementation of agile training systems using a skills-based approach. An educational engineer will soon be recruited and will work in close collaboration with the Institute for Transitions, which will be responsible for leading the implementation of new transversal systems.

Several measures can be used to support this change over time: additional funding from our supervisory authority, a strong incentive to identify this priority as one of the institution's priorities in future recruitments, and the mobilisation of some of the institution's major programmes such as NewDEAL or ACT. We also want to change the way we assess the career development of academics and staff. The idea is to make our institution's HR policy consistent with these environmental and societal transition issues."

Lecturers and lecturer-researchers may contact the referents of their training or research component to support the actions coordinated by the institution.

They can also join the working groups that will be set up in each community to facilitate the integration of transition issues into the disciplinary training offer. We also need colleagues to bring forward their training needs on these topics, which sometimes go beyond their expertise.