ICJ - Interview of François Weil

François Weil. President, School for studies in Social Sciences (EHESS)

1. What is HESAM, your higher education research centre, doing to prepare for its integration into the IDEX projects (French excellence initiatives)?
We redefined our project between the first and second wave of selections. We tried to develop a more ambitious and transformative project that emphasises and clarifies what we want to do together in terms of ties between social sciences and the humanities, engineering sciences, public and private governance sciences and management. And I think that's what we have tried to include in the project, particularly in conjunction with our partners in the economic sector.
2. Is there enough competitiveness?
It is clear that there is a spirit of competition between the different project sponsors. I think that the future will tell whether this spirit is negative or positive. Today, I see the positive side of things. This competition has forced us to redefine our priorities and clarify a certain number of our choices. In a few years we will see whether the competition which has been set up has had some negative effects as well.
3. Is this project supported by the entire academic community?
I have the feeling that a vast majority of our universities in the academic community support this project because all our colleagues understood that the world changed over the last few decades, that universities and the world of higher education changed extremely quickly and that if institutions didn't plan for the future, they could quickly find themselves irrelevant. I think this is a view shared by many universities.

Category:

Education

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