IDEX Paris Saclay IDEX PIA1 END OF PROBATIONARY · PDF fileidex pia1 idex paris‐saclay end of probationary period evaluation report 4 table of contents summary 5 1. achievements

IDEX PIA1 IDEX Paris‐Saclay

END OF PROBATIONARY PERIOD EVALUATION REPORT

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End‐of‐Probationary‐Period Evaluation Report

Full title of the IDEX IDEX Paris‐Saclay

Key words Research intensive university, scientific excellence, developing innovation, comprehensive training offer at international standard

Start date End date

01/03/2012 30/06/2016

IDEX website www.universite‐paris‐saclay.fr/en

Principal investigator Name, Surname: CHAPPERT, Claude Telephone: +33 6 37 04 35 95 E‐mail: claude.chappert@universite‐paris‐saclay.fr

Institution leading the project (Project leader)

Name: FCS Campus Paris‐Saclay Structure: FCS. The ComUE “Université Paris‐Saclay” created in January 2015 is progressively taking leadership

Date of writing 22/12/2015



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TABLE OF CONTENTS

SUMMARY 5

1. ACHIEVEMENTS 7

1.1 Taking account of the jury's recommendations ............................................................... 7

1.2 Changes in the project at the time of grant agreement preparation .............................. 7

1.3 Structuring and governance of the "Target University" ................................................... 8

1.3.1) Constitution and structuring of the "Target University" ....................................................... 8

1.3.2) Governance ......................................................................................................................... 11

1.4 Trajectory ........................................................................................................................ 13

1.5 Other achievements ....................................................................................................... 19

1.5.1) Transformational nature and added value ......................................................................... 19

1.5.2) HR policy and mobilisation of resources ............................................................................. 19

1.5.3) Research and training ......................................................................................................... 26

1.5.4) Policy for transfer to industry ............................................................................................. 32

1.5.5) Student life and life on the Campus .................................................................................... 41

1.5.6) Culture, Science and Society ............................................................................................... 42

1.5.7) Construction of the identity ................................................................................................ 42

1.5.8) International visibility.......................................................................................................... 44

1.5.9) Focus: remarkable achievements ....................................................................................... 45

2. PROJECTION INTO THE FUTURE ................................................................................................................ 46

3. OPTIONAL ASSESSMENT AND ANALYSIS ................................................................................................... 55

4. INDICATORS 60



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SUMMARY

With over 15% of all French research currently undertaken by institutions belonging to “Université Paris Saclay” (UPSaclay), our scientific potential is clear. With over 500 000 m2 currently under construction, our campus is rapidly becoming a reality (for more details see Appendix A).

Yet, in order to achieve the aim of our IDEX project to “build a world‐class research university, approach the top ten of international rankings within ten years”, we knew from the beginning that we faced one great challenge: our institutional complexity.

This institutional complexity is, to the best of our knowledge, unique: with 18 different institutions, depending on five ministries, 3 secretaries of State and a plethora of legal statuses, writing a common project was a challenge in itself. Trying to create a single university, with a common identity when many of the 18 institutions had secular histories and were widely recognised as world leaders in their fields sounded like science fiction to some specialists of university reforms.

Four years down the road, we feel that we have come a long way. Not only have we kept the same aim but we feel that we have achieved a number of key milestones towards turning our dream into reality.

We started by focusing our efforts on ambitious but concrete projects that would reinforce our common understanding, enable the emergence of a common identity and lay the foundations of our university:

We restructured the Master and PhD offer and received the accreditation to grant degrees. Thanks to the work of hundreds of academic staff, we fully reviewed the 306 Masters (with 1000 tracks) offered by our respective institutions. We eliminated internal overlaps, developed synergies, set up innovative curricula and implemented quality management process. We then regrouped them in 48 Masters within 8 schools and accredited them with the French State. This year the first of the 8200 students currently enrolled will receive a “Université Paris‐Saclay” degree. Similarly, we have reorganised the 29 doctoral schools in 20 more coherent schools which all grant an UPSaclay doctorate.

We set up instruments to develop synergies in research. Our internal calls (LIDEX) have enabled the emergence of strong communities building on the synergies of the members. We have also structured our 10 research departments, and started the organization of our first research institutes, which represent the beginning of an in‐depth strategic reorganization of labs in key areas, where socio‐economic stakes are high. And since Sept. 2015 we share a common Univ. Paris‐Saclay signature for publications.

We developed a full chain of instruments to support R&D and transfer. Because Paris‐Saclay wants to be a major innovation hub, we developed a full array of activities, in coherence with the SATT, from workshops and conferences to foster awareness among



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researchers and students, to a “pre‐maturation” instrument for start‐ups, a design center to enable prototyping, and strategic partnerships with economic partners.

We supported campus and student life. We have created the conditions for a common student life, and issued a common Université Paris‐Saclay student card to 70 000 students in 2015‐2016. We are also working towards the mutualisation of services such as athletic facilities, catering, housing, health care, etc.

Simultaneously we created the institutional instruments to further our aim of building a world class university. In 2012, when we presented our IDEX application, our collective structure was that of a private foundation which functioned similarly to an association. Today, after the vote of the new status, we have become a ComUE, namely a public institution which is able to grant degrees, is endowed with elected governing bodies representing the whole academic community, and bears the collective brand “Université Paris‐Saclay”. This institutional structure is not definitive and needs to evolve further as we continue to move towards the target university. However, it is an essential step forward, because it creates the basis to develop our brand, notably through its degree‐granting capabilities. We have also set up key transversal structures of the future university such as our departments and schools.

The period 2012‐2015 has thus allowed us to take decisive steps: the partners of the IDEX are now organized within a ComUE, in charge of developing the common brand “Université Paris‐Saclay”, and already granting “Univ. Paris‐Saclay” degrees. These results give us the confidence to face six key challenges that we see as the prerequisites for the success of our target university: (1) solving the disparity in terms of student orientation between grandes écoles and universités; (2) finding the right balance in terms of external and internal representativity in our governing structures; (3) defining the optimal level of subsidiarity and the best legal status; (4) preserving existing reputations within a more integrated structure; (5) reinforcing geographical unity; (6) increasing our sources of revenue.

By answering these challenges we will be able to achieve two important upcoming milestones:

By the first semester 2017, the main organizational bodies of Université Paris‐Saclay (schools, departments, doctoral college) will have become fully operational.

By 2019, date of the next site agreement with the MENESR, the functional organization of the adapted ComUE will be fully operational and tested, the educational offer at Licence level will have been submitted for accreditation, and the revised educational offer at Master and Doctoral level will be ready to be submitted. This will be the ideal time to reach an agreement between partners with the help of the French State on the legal status of the target university that could thus become fully operational for the next 2020‐2024 five‐year period.

We are aware that it is possible that not all 18 institutions will be able to progress at the same rhythm and that some may choose to remain associated rather than join the future Université Paris‐Saclay, but we are convinced that we must continue to move forwards if we want to achieve our ten year target of being one of the world’s leading universities.



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1. ACHIEVEMENTS

1.1 TAKING ACCOUNT OF THE JURY'S RECOMMENDATIONS

Jury's recommendation Response given Any

commitment(s) made ac‐cordingly

To the project bearers:

Better define and accel‐erate the implementa‐

tion of the unique School of Engineering which is

not simply a consortium

associating existing inde‐pendent schools. The essential requisites to

establish the School should be reached

no later than 2013.

As early as march 2012, a work group was created with high‐level representatives of all partners to discuss how to best answer this recommendation. The work group proposed two decisions that were implemented: ‐ a “School of Engineering and Information Science and Technology” was created, initially under workgroup format. It now is a formal subdivision of the ComUE. ‐ this School first took in charge a complete reorganiza‐tion of the Master degrees in engineering sciences, that are since 2015 all delivered by Université Paris‐Saclay (UPSaclay) under accreditation from the State. This was a huge task, and a priority to stay on schedule with the five‐yearly pace of contracting with the MENESR. The school is today a key element of UPSaclay, and continues to implement the jury’s recommendation and our IDEX commitments, as a key instrument of integra‐tion of education in the field of engineering throughout UPSaclay.

This point is part of a more global commitment taken in the IDEX grant agree‐ment: to define and set up a trans‐institution organi‐sational scheme including subdivisions for the coor‐dination of research, train‐ing and the doctoral pro‐ject. Internal agreement on this organization scheme was obtained in Nov. 2012 and included in the legal status. The formal setup had to wait until the creation of the ComUE and the vote of its bylaw on November 4th, 2015.

Specify the vision of the integrated Université

Paris‐Saclay further, with legally binding commit‐ments of all partners and clear milestones for im‐

plementation.

The grant agreement signed in April 2012 listed precise milestones for the duration of the probationary period, and a commitment to provide, at the end of it, a deliv‐erable report proposing a new trajectory towards the target university. The institutional trajectory was delayed by about 18 months because of discussion and implementation of the July 2013 Law on higher education and research, which was not planned in 2011. However all milestones but one and all major commit‐ments for the probationary period have been met or even exceeded (see §1.4 below). The new trajectory is outlined in §2 of the present report.

1.2 CHANGES IN THE PROJECT AT THE TIME OF GRANT AGREEMENT PREPARATION

The grant agreement did not change anything to the major commitments taken by the consortium in 2011‐2012. The agreement focused on the definition of a demanding trajectory for the probationary period, with detailed milestones. Further definition of the



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trajectory towards the “target university” beyond 2016 was postponed to the report for the end of probationary period. This is the object of Part 2 of this report.

1.3 STRUCTURING AND GOVERNANCE OF THE "TARGET UNIVERSITY"

1.3.1) Constitution and structuring of the "Target University"

Has the "Target University" been created or is it in the process of being created?

A short description of the “Target University” can be found on page 7 of the selection phase project: “The ambitious objective of the Paris‐Saclay IDEX is to build a world‐class research university, to approach the top ten of international rankings within ten years”.

We believe we have already achieved a lot along this path, with the creation of a “Université Paris‐Saclay” (UPSaclay) institution with a “Communauté d’Universités et Etablissements” (ComUE) legal status in January 2015, and thanks to a range of IDEX co‐funded actions to drive the consortium towards excellence and start building the UPSaclay attractiveness and brand (see below for a detailed description of these actions).

The ComUE has notably negotiated with MENESR the 2015‐2019 site contract of the “Paris‐Saclay Group” of institutions, officially signed on July 20th, 2015. This contract outlines a shared project for the whole territory in research, education, innovation and transfer and student life, confirms the accreditation of the UPSaclay doctoral schools and Masters, and includes a commitment from the State to provide 56 positions to the ComUE by 2017.

In this frame research is considered at the territory level, and for instance the I‐Site project presented by the Evry campus institutions in 2015 was elaborated in perfect coherence within the UPSaclay research and education strategy in this field, and we will suggest that it be allowed to participate in future IDEX research projects.

All institutional milestones listed in the IDEX grant agreement have been achieved as planned (see §1.4) except for one: ensuring UPSaclay was included in international rankings. As should have been anticipated, most ranking agencies consider French ComUE as university systems1. In this sense, the fact of granting degrees and starting to build a brand is just the first step of a long process. Seen from outside, the current structure of UPSaclay ComUE remains more similar to a “university system”, like that of University of London, than to a genuine international research university. This is why the next steps in our trajectory towards the target university are so important. They are described in Part 2 of this report, with more details given in Part 3 on specific actions.

What institutional changes have taken place over the 4 years?

1 For instance, the web site: http://www.leidenranking.com/methodology/datacollection#selectionandcounting

proposes a specific note on French ComUE in its paragraph “Identification of universities”.



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All IDEX Paris‐Saclay partners (see Appendix B for a complete listing) except INSERM and SOLEIL (a CEA‐CNRS joint venture) are members of the FCS Campus Paris‐Saclay (FCS), which is the institution leading the project since 2012. The FCS is a science foundation with a private legal status that was initially created to manage joint research projects, and later adapted to take charge of the scientific coordination of PIA funded real estate operations.

In 2012, the FCS governing bodies (see Appendix B for details) included: an advisory Assembly of 35 members and a compact Board of administration of 14 members, both deciding by majority vote.

Although efficient for its initial goals, this governance was not adapted to drive an ambitious transformation of our consortium towards a world‐class university, in particular because of the low level of representativeness of the community. Our initial strategy was therefore:

A. Immediately, adapt the governance of the FCS to the new task, in particular:

set up an executive board under the general manager, in charge of the IDEX project, with 7 directors for each main axis;

change the FCS bylaw to create a large (140 members) Academic Senate elected by direct vote from the community and whose opinions are expressed by majority vote;

set up an “IDEX steering committee” of 21 members including the president of the FCS and its executive board, also deciding by majority vote.

These changes were implemented exactly as committed: the FCS executive board and IDEX steering committee were operational as early as March 2012, and practically finalised by November 2012. The Academic Senate was fully operational by June 2013.

B. By January 2014, create a public higher education and research institution “Université Paris‐Saclay” (UPSaclay) with a specifically designed governance, able to take the leadership of the IDEX driven transformation towards the target university.

This second step was delayed by the elaboration of the July 2013 Law on higher education and research, which eliminated the initially targeted “Etablissement public de coopération scientifique” (EPCS) legal status, while introducing that of ComUE. The Université Paris‐Saclay ComUE only became fully operational in September 2015.

THE “UNIVERSITÉ PARIS‐SACLAY” COMUE

All IDEX partners except FCS (intended to be transformed into a UPSaclay foundation), SOLEIL (represented by its stakeholders CNRS and CEA) and SYSTEMATIC (a cluster of companies) are full “Members” of the ComUE.

As of today, the main UPSaclay governing bodies (see Appendix B for details) are a Board of administration of 26 members (including representatives from Member institutions, from the community, and external stakeholders), a Members council for internal conciliation and where all 18 Member institutions have equal right of vote, and a consultative Academic council of 220 members representing the community (staff, students) and external stakeholders.

The Board of administration is the decision‐making body for all topics, whilst the Members council and Academic council advise the Board. Opinions are usually taken by majority vote.



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THE “PARIS‐SACLAY GROUP”

The ComUE assumes the leadership of the “Paris‐Saclay Group”. To allow participation of the main “Associate” institutions (in the sense of the July 2013 Law) of the ComUE to the management of the site contract, they will be permanently invited to the Members council with advisory opinion, and will also send invited representatives to the Academic council. At the lower levels of the UPSaclay governance, the bylaw voted on November 4th, 2015 gives them equal rights to Member institutions, but only in the fields and projects where they have significant involvement. This concerns in particular the UPSaclay Doctorate and Master courses, and the research departments.

Currently, 4 institutions have formally asked to become UPSaclay Associates: Evry‐Val d’Essone university (UEVE), Ecole Nationale Supérieure d'Informatique pour l'Industrie et l'entreprise (ENSIIE) and Télécom Ecole de Management (TEM), all located on Evry Campus, and “École supérieure des techniques aéronautiques et de construction automobile” (ESTACA) that recently moved to the Plateau de Saclay. Discussion is continuing with other institutions such as Evry Genopole, IFPEN, IRSTEA etc. to sign research partnership agreements.

What competences are already exercised jointly?

48 Master programmes (with about 450 specialized courses at M1 and M2 level) and 20 doctoral schools are jointly operated by the 18 UPSaclay Member institutions and 2 Associates: UEVE and ENSIIE. The organization tries to make an intelligent use of subsidiarity.

A. For the Master programmes (more details are given below and in Appendix B):

Each Master course has a referent institution that coordinates the action of all co‐operating partners for the organisation of the course in the name of UPSaclay;

A joint web application platform accessible from the UPSaclay web site collects the applications from all students;

Recruitment juries are set up for each Master course to approve applications on the basis of public prerequisites, and face‐to‐face interviews;

The answer from the recruitment jury is transmitted to the applicants by UPSaclay administration, and specifies: the curriculum for which the student is accepted and the institution of administrative registration, depending on the history of the student;

Mandatory documents for registration are the same in all institutions;

All partners agreed on a common set of academic rules and regulations for UPSaclay Masters (exams policies, elimination scores, constitution of the juries…). Graduation juries (of degree, year, semester) representing all operators are mentioned in orders published by the president of UPSaclay for each course;

Internship agreement are the same for all Master courses, and all institutions follow the same process;

Teaching evaluation has been homogenised.



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B. The UPSaclay 20 doctoral schools2 are gathered in a doctoral college, governed by a council including representatives from the Members and the two Associates, the directors of the 20 doctoral schools and elected representatives from the PhD students. It proposes the nomination of a director of the UPSaclay doctorate to institutions, for final decision by the President of UPSaclay. More details are given below and in Appendix B.

What competences are effectively transferred to the "Target University"?

The leadership for the management of the five‐yearly site contract, together with the accreditation of 48 Master programs and 20 doctoral schools, is a genuine competence effectively transferred to the ComUE by the signature of the MENESR on July 2015.

Will these competences be enhanced in the future?

This will be certainly the case, and the answer to this question is given in Part 2 below.

1.3.2) Governance

What changes have taken place with regard to project governance (and site governance if they are separate)?

Because of the late creation of UPSaclay, the FCS continued to govern the IDEX for the whole duration of the probationary period, whereas since 2015 the ComUE has progressively taken the leadership in defining the trajectory and actions for the next period.

In order to limit potential conflicts, we have ensured that the two structures are largely interchangeable: elected representatives of the academic community are the same in the Board of administration of the two institutions, the newly elected academic council of the ComUE also serves as the academic senate of the FCS, and the executive board and the IDEX executive Committee serve both institutions. By the end of 2016 the FCS will be transformed into a regular foundation devoted to fund‐raising (see Part 3).

The IDEX project management operated as planned. The “Actions, Means, Structures Strategic Plan” (PSAMS) specified the aims that the IDEX defines for the upcoming 3 to 4 years, with a longer term prospective vision. It links the list of actions to means, specifies the structures to be put to work, defines the quantitative objectives to be achieved, and proposes a precise action plan and budget for the following year. Every year a new PSAMS, building on the previous one, was elaborated by the IDEX steering committee, presented to the FCS Assembly with the annual budget, and voted by the FCS Board in its December meeting. The IDEX steering committee is then in charge of monitoring its execution during the year, taking decisions such as the detailed definition and results of the calls, and applying corrective measures when problems are met. A mid‐term evaluation by the FCS Board and Assembly is done in June. Considering that the IDEX project itself with its operational measures was the initial PSAMS, regular PSAMS have been voted for 2013, 2014 and 2015‐2016, the last one encompassing the end of the probationary period. For 2016, the FCS Board voted the continuation of the 2015‐2016 PSAMS in its December 9th meeting.

2 The doctoral schools are bodies created under a 2006 law and as such benefit from a large autonomy.



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To manage the transformation towards the future university a more elaborate process was set up, still under the leadership of the FCS Board:

Workgroups (involving several hundred people) were systematically created on every subject and coordinated by the IDEX steering comity and FCS executive board;

12 “one‐day IDEX seminars” were organized between March 28th, 2012 and October 21st, 2014, under the leadership of the FCS President, with the heads of IDEX partner institutions, the executive board and IDEX steering committee, the executive board of the Academic Senate3, the elected members of the FCS governance, and representatives of the workgroups concerned by the subject of the seminar. The IDEX steering comity formulated conclusions that the executive board was charged to implement. When such conclusions concerned institutional subjects or involved resources from institutions, they were presented to the FCS Board for decision.

15 Board meetings were held between February 15th, 2012 and December 10th, 2014, that decided on major subjects such as the submission to MENESR of the project of UPSaclay doctoral college (November 2013), the UPSaclay Master educational offer (September 2014) or the organization scheme in schools and departments.

Before each Board decision, the Academic senate was invited to provide its opinion.

Since 2015, the seminars have been mostly replaced by more formal exchanges with the Members council and Academic council providing opinions to the Board.

More details on this process can be found in Appendix B to this report.

What are the main decisions taken jointly by the governing bodies in place?

The main decision taken by the FCS governance were:

Signature of the grant agreement (April 2012)

Submission of the consortium agreement (July 2013)

Submission of a complete offer for a UPSaclay doctoral college (Nov. 2013)

Organizational scheme for UPSaclay (Dec. 2014)

Submission to Members governing bodies and to the State of a legal status for creation of the “Université Paris‐Saclay” ComUE (May 2014)

Submission of a comprehensive UPSaclay graduate level educational offer (Sept. 2014)

The main decisions taken by the ComUE governance were:

Signature of the site contract with MENESR (June 2015)

Agreement on common signature of publications mentioning Université Paris‐Saclay (set up in Sept. 2015)

Vote of a bylaw document gathering the first comprehensive set of rules and regulations for the ComUE (Nov. 4th, 2015).

3 Before proper election in June 2013, an Academic council foreshadowing the FCS Senate had been set up in 2011 through nomination by the FCS Board of high‐level scientists from all institutions.



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1.4 TRAJECTORY Institutional trajectory towards the creation of “Université Paris‐Saclay”

Operational commitment Scale of achieve‐ment (%)

Initially planned date of

achievement

Any difficulties

Explanation for the level of achievement and for any

divergences

Submission to French state of a proposition of legal status for UPSaclay, with internal rules and regulations

100% 31/12/2012

Delay induced by the need to wait for the July 2013 Law for higher education and research, with a new legal status of ComUE re‐placing the EPCS status

initially targeted

First submission delayed to January 8th, 2014, final text ready by May 9th, 2014, all delays due to French State

Agreement of State on UPSaclay legal status

100% 30/06/2013

Formal agreement was reached by July 17th, 2014 after vote of all members

governing bodies

The 6 months delay be‐tween first submission early January and final agree‐ment is indeed short con‐sidering the complexity of the process at 18 members

Official creation of UP‐Saclay institution

The governance of UP‐Saclay is fully operational.

100% 01/01/2014

Delay of State for signing the creation decree, then necessary delay to organize elections to the governing

bodies

Official creation of UPSaclay by decree of State :

01/01/2015 Governance complete:

Sept. 2015

Official launch of the search committee to recruit a president

100% 01/10/2012

Necessary to wait for for‐mal agreement of all mem‐ber institutions on legal

status

Launched by July 2014

Nomination of an interim president for UPSaclay

100% 01/07/2013

The President of the FCS was elected President of

UPSaclay at the 1st meeting of the interim Board on

January 27th, 2015

Election of the President of UPSaclay by its Board

100% Jan. 2014

Time necessary to complete the first election to the Board by direct universal suffrage involving over 90000 electors (staff and

students)

The President was elected at the 1st meeting of the Board on June 10th, 2015.

Agreement of all member institutions on a common signature of publications mentioning UPSaclay

100% 01/01/2014

Technical discussions on the choice of signature and the impact with existing data bases (Thomson‐Reuters

and Scopus)

The decision was taken bythe Council of Members on March 4th, 2015, for imple‐mentation starting on Sep‐

tember 1st, 2015



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First agreement of partner institutions on a first organizational scheme for the future UPSaclay, and on the missions given to all subdivisions created.

100% 30/09/2012

No real difficulty but neces‐sary time for discussion involving member institu‐tions and the academic

community.

Voted by the FCS board on November 14th, 2012 with

only limited delay. Subdivisions created: re‐search departments,

schools, doctoral college.

Start date of operation of an organizational scheme foreshadowing that of the future UPSaclay, under governance by the FCS 100% 01/04/2013

No real difficulty but neces‐sary time for discussion involving member institu‐tions and the academic

community.

Work groups foreshadow‐ing the future organization, and in charge of defining its final contours, were started by end of 2012. But organi‐zational scheme of UP‐

Saclay could only be formal‐ly voted in November 2015 once UPSaclay had been

set‐up.

Starting the degrees of UPSaclay

100% 01/01/2015

Many different steps to take:

AERES evaluation in 2014; April 13th, 2015: vote in

CNESER; July 10th, 2015: accredita‐

tion Decree; Sept. 1st, 2015: start of

courses.

Doctoral schools and Mas‐ter courses all started at the regular start date of univer‐

sity year, as planned.

All partners ask international ranking agencies (ARWU, THE, QS, Leiden) to start considering UPSaclay as a single entity to be ranked in place of its member institutions.

0% 01/01/2015

Key international agencies, such as ARWU and Leiden don’t accept to rank institu‐tions with a legal status of ComUE (checked by other

IDEX).

New strategy explained in part 2 of this report.



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Trajectory for building the conditions for Excellence

IDEX Governance Operational commitment

Scale of achieve‐ment (%)


achievement

Any difficulties

Explanation for the level of achievement and for any diver‐

gences

Setting up a first govern‐ance for the IDEX

100% 30/03/2012 None The first meeting of the official IDEX steering committee took place on Feb. 29th, 2012

All IDEX governing bod‐ies described in the grant agreement are operational.

The procedure “Ac‐tions, Means and Structures Strategic Plan” (PSAMS) is de‐fined.

The rules and process of major IDEX projects are defined and their governance set up.

100% 30/07/2012

First elections by direct universal suffrage in‐volving about 9000 electors (researchers and faculty members) within Université Paris‐Saclay perimeter.

The planned IDEX governing bodies were all in place with the election of the FCS Senate completed on April 4th, 2013. The IDEX steering committee decided that the IDEX project would serve as PSAMS for 2012. The first PSAMS (for 2013) was voted by the FCS Board on Feb. 27th, 2013. A set of common governance rules was decided for the LABEX in IDEX by June 2012, and then applied to all large IDEX funded projects.

Signature by all members of a Consortium agree‐ment

100% 30/04/2013 Difficulty to negotiate such a complex agree‐ment with 22 partners

The FCS Board voted the agreement on June 28th, 2013, with only minor delay to schedule.



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Research, training, innovation and

transfer Operational commitment



achievement

Any difficulties

Explanation for the level of achievement and for

any divergences

All LABEX in IDEX are opera‐tional

100% 30/06/2012

Discussion with LABEX teams on the participation of repre‐sentatives in LABEX govern‐ance (not a strong difficulty)

Fully achieved by Sept. 2012

First IDEX research projects selected

100% 31/12/2012 Time necessary to launch the call and gather an interna‐

tional jury

Decision of the Board : April 24th, 2013

First selected IDEX project launched

100% 01/03/2013 Time to negotiate project

agreements Achieved by Sept. 2013

First interdisciplinary institute opens

100% 01/01/2015 I2BC officially merged on

the 01/01/2015

All selected IDEFI are operational

100% 30/06/2012 The projects asked to start on

January 1st, 2013 Achieved

Call open for interdisciplinary PhD grants

100% 31/05/2012 Achieved, 30 PhD grants

were awarded

First proposition for reorganizing doctorate and master training.

100% 31/12/2012 A workgroup started to work on the subject in July 2012

The principles of a unique doctoral college were agreed upon by the FCS Assembly in Nov 2012

Agreement on a graduate training offer for the 2015‐2019 five‐year contract, including: ‐ a single Doctoral college delivering the doctorate of Université Paris‐Saclay, concerning at least 80% of PhD students within the consortium. ‐ an offer of Master courses co‐operated by all partners and concerning at least 30% of master students within the consortium

100% 01/10/2013

The trajectory had to respect the regular schedule of accreditation process by the MENESR: ‐ the project of a unique doctoral college was submitted by Nov. 2013; ‐ the offer of Master courses was submitted by Sept. 2014;‐ the examination by the CNESER took place in April 2015; ‐ the accreditation was granted in July 2015

More than achieved, as the final offer includes

100% of the PhD students and 80% of the Master students of Paris‐Saclay

Group.



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Proposition for a 2020‐2024 full higher education offer of Université Paris‐Saclay, reorganizing the whole consortium offer at all levels from undergraduate to doctorate.

na 01/10/2018

This commitment has become a standard mile‐stones of the 2015‐2019 “contrat de site” signed in July 2014 between the

ComUE and the MENESR. Details are given in Part 2.

Organisation of an innova‐tion ecosystem: agreement between parties and first version of the plan.

100% 01/01/2013

These 6 milestones were delayed until we obtained full agreement of the State on the creation of the Paris‐

Saclay SATT, a key element of the chain of tools intended to

support innovation. This agreement was formally obtained in Oct. 2013, and an IDEX director of “Innovation and transfer” was recruited in

Sept. 2013 to start developing the activity according to the plan

Workgroups were launched in Sept. 2013. A first Call for projects was launched in Dec. 2013

Organisation of an innovation ecosystem: agreement between parties and complete version of the plan.

100% 01/01/ 2014

Second IDEX call in Oct. 2014, SATT start in Oct. 2014, completing the Innovation chain planned.

A desk interfacing UPSaclay Members with PME is operational

0% 01/10/2012

Not yet done by UPSaclay, but partner SYSTEMATIC already registers 400

PME.

A Business Partner Club is created

0% 0I/04/2013 Many discussions are

being held, but the club is not yet formally created.

First international Paris‐Saclay Business Convention. Second convention prepar‐ing an annual event.

100%

01/07/2013

01/07/2014..

The first Paris‐Saclay Business Convention was held on Nov. 24‐25th,

2015, and gathered more than 500 attendees on the subject of Big Data.

Evaluation of the Student entrepreneurship current program. Start of a new student entrepreneurship program.

100%

01/07/2013

01/01/2014

The Paris‐Saclay project was awarded in the 2014 Call PEPITE launched by

the MENESR



18

IDEX International, Campus Life

Operational commitment



achievement

Any difficulties

Explanation for the level of achievement and for any diver‐

gences

Map of existing interna‐tional agreements of each member institution, prepar‐ing a first scheme of inter‐national strategy at collec‐tive level

100% 01/10/2012 The map was done in due time

First international partner‐ship agreement

100% 01/06/2013

Such agreements with international universi‐ties require to share educational offers, which was not possi‐ble before 2015, hence the delay. But discussions started well earlier.

A memory of understanding with Singapore universities NUS and NTU was signed on May 19th, 2015 in the presence of the pres‐idents of Singapore and France

Start of the international scholarship scheme with help of IDEX funding.

100% 01/01/2013

Agreement on the search and recruitment process of high potential international researchers and professors

100% 01/09/2013

The first Call “IDEX Paris‐Saclay Chairs” was launched by Sep‐

tember 2013, after agreement of all IDEX partners on its condi‐

tions

Definition of the Campus high speed numerical net‐work. This network is operational.

100%

100%

31/06/2012

01/01/2015

The date of achievement was slightly delayed due to other urban development, but the

network became operational at end of 2015.

Agreement on an e‐learning strategy First effects of the IDEX supporter e‐learning strategy

100%

100%

31/06/2012

01/10/2013

Agreement on the Learning Centre program

100% 01/07/2012



19

1.5 OTHER ACHIEVEMENTS

1.5.1) Transformational nature and added value

What are the major achievements of the IDEX and in what respects could they not have been achieved without the support provided by the PIA programme?

The major achievements of the IDEX are:

The new training scheme for the Master degree currently involving 80% of the students at this level (see 1.5.3 and Appendix B for details);

The common doctoral training and doctoral degree delivered by the Université Paris‐Saclay (see 1.5.3 and Appendix B for details);

The new research institutes created on January 1st, 2015 and, for several of them, the new associated building projects (see 1.5.3 for details);

The common signature of scientific publications, with the affiliation “Université Paris‐Saclay”, as of September 1st, 2015.

A common ID card for all students, with one side indicating the institution of administrative registration and the other Université Paris‐Saclay.

The creation in October 2013 of a Paris‐Saclay SATT, with the FCS today, and UPSaclay by end of 2016, as the sole stakeholder with Caisse des Dépôts.

These examples clearly illustrate the major transformation that is underway and results from the long‐term view shared among the Member institutions since 2011.

In what respect do the IDEX actions stem from a strategy that goes beyond simply funding and coordinating the operations carried out by the members?

All the IDEX actions aim to foster the collective actions of the partner institutions and to increase the scientific quality and visibility of the site. They make sense only within an overall, long‐term strategy towards the target university (see Part 2 below).

All achievements result from strategic decisions taken by the UPSaclay Members council (or the FCS Board before 2015), and which all require a considerable investment from the partners, on top of IDEX funding which is used as seed‐funding (e.g. through a specific funding of the doctoral college for its starting year).

1.5.2) HR policy and mobilisation of resources

What are the mechanisms for allocating the human resources?

How is recruitment carried out:

Which body decides on the creation and/or assignment of jobs coming under the IDEX?



20

As a general rule, recruitments are decided by the steering committee of the corresponding program (LABEX, LIDEX4, IDI5 PhD program, Master fellowship program etc.), with an overall survey of the IDEX partners through the IDEX steering committee and vote of the PSAMS.

In the case of the Excellence research chair program, jobs provided by the ministry to the ComUE, or jobs directly related to the management of the IDEX project, the IDEX steering committee is directly in charge, with the help of a special workgroup gathering all Research Directors or VP of the Members when their human resources are involved.

Who appoints the recruitment committee and how is it made up?

For each program, the recruitment committee is appointed by the corresponding steering committee. It is composed of appropriate scientists selected for their high scientific, pedagogical and/or technological skills.

What policy or policies is this committee mandated to implement in order to select the person to recruit?

The main goal is to attract the best talents at the international level. Accordingly, the committees are mandated to apply, to this purpose, the highest international standards (e.g. wide international publication of the recruitment position through labs or appropriate journals, use of external reports). To this purpose, explicit messages have been sent to the project coordinators, in particular to the LABEX and LIDEX. The purpose of the shared doctoral college is to progressively implement (through a common quality charter) these practices at the level of the different disciplinary fields when recruiting PhD students.

What is/are the institution(s) employing personnel recruited thanks to the IDEX funds?

The hiring is made by one of the IDEX member institutions in the case of personnel related to a particular scientific, pedagogic or technological project, while it is made by the IDEX for management or administrative positions.

What percentage of the jobs of the IDEX member institutions has been freed by them to be made available to the Initiative?

Strictly speaking, no jobs have been directly freed by the IDEX members (in the grant award agreement, the commitment was at 10%). The budget crisis that affected our biggest Members and strongly reduced their recruitment potential, and the perspective of the initiatives that were taken since 2012, some of them of a deep transformational nature (departments, research institutes, UPSaclay creation etc.), simply delayed such actions. However, as explained below, each institution has strongly increased the coherence of its recruitment policy with respect to the main IDEX objectives. Moreover, a certain number of recruitments by the member institutions within the frame of IDEX excellence research Chairs were decided jointly, with a common selection process implemented. Finally, as explained in paragraph 1.5.3, a deep reorganization of the research landscape is under way, which implies the mobility of a large fraction of the academic staff. This will be, in the long run, one

4 A LABEX equivalent but launched within IDEX after a selection process with an external jury, see below 5 IDI : Interdisciplinary Doctoral Initiative, see below



21

of the most powerful levers to turn Paris‐Saclay into a more efficient and attractive research university.

What instruments are used to serve the talent management policy?

Doctoral students

Recruitment

procedure

Methods implemented: A unique recruitment procedure, transparent and

accountable, for all doctoral students whatever their conditions. The admission

Jury assesses the doctoral projects and (since 2015) selects candidates for the

audition. These candidates will have to defend their doctoral project and to

answer the questions of the Jury.

The grants coming from the higher education members of Université Paris‐Saclay

(300 grants) have been pooled so has to increase the impact and efficiency of the

recruitment procedure. The grants funded by the IDEX (30 per year) were treated

separately since they were dedicated to support interdisciplinary research projects

(approx. 7 projects submitted per available grant.)

Developments envisaged: set up a PhD track framework to attract high potential

students at the master level and combine the grants of the IDEX at the master

level with grants either of the IDEX or from higher education members of Paris‐

Saclay to set up five year grants.

Type of contract (and

name of employer)

Methods implemented: All PhD students were recruited under regular work

contracts, by the higher education institution supervising the host laboratory that

of one of the PhD co‐supervisors.

Developments envisaged: The status of public higher education institution of

UPSaclay will allow more flexibility in the future for direct PhD recruitment, but

this will be implemented pragmatically within the progressive integration

described in Part 2 below.



22

Post‐doc

Recruitment

procedure

Methods implemented: The post‐doc recruitments are managed by the project

(LABEX, LIDEX) that was granted the fund. Clear incentives were fixed to proceed

with wide international advertisement and systematic use of a selection

committee (even if restricted to project partners if out of recruiting team), with

further validation by the project’s steering committee. One rule is also to forbid

recruiting own PhD student soon after the end of the PhD.

Developments envisaged: The procedure described above begins to show its effect

(for instance the ration of international post‐docs is rising). So the objective is to

generalize the enforcement of such procedure, with however clever adaptations to

the specificities of each disciplinary field.


name of employer)

Methods implemented: All post‐doctoral researchers were recruited under regular

CDD work contracts, by one of the institutions supervising the host laboratory. The

rules followed are those of the recruitment institution.


UPSaclay will allow more flexibility in the future for direct post‐doc recruitment,

but this will be implemented pragmatically within the progressive integration

described in Part 2 below.

Remuneration policy

Methods implemented: We do our best efforts to adapt the remuneration to

quality of the post‐doc recruited, however within the limits of the employer’s

regulations.

Developments envisaged: None for post‐docs, we rather put our efforts on high

potential recruitments.

Principal recruitments

We did not implement any tenure track procedure. Some LABEX have. The general idea is to recruit an excellent post‐doctoral researcher, giving him a research package so that he can start its own team at once, and help him to secure rapidly (1 or 2 years) a permanent position in one of the host institutions.



23

High scientific and technical potential

“International Attractiveness Chairs program”

Recruitment

procedure (notably

composition and

method of appointing

the selection

committee)

Methods implemented: This was done within the IDEX “International

Attractiveness Chairs program”, is designed as a powerful tool to orient

recruitments towards the main scientific projects, to attract top level scientists and

to offer them, from the moment of their arrival, good working conditions.

The basic principle of an IDEX chair is the articulation of 3 different elements:

a high‐level recruitment by one or several partners on a UPSaclay strategic

subject,

the possibility to create, if needed, a team around the Chair Fellow,

additional IDEX funding (c.500k€) to help kick‐start activities.

The objective was to recruit up to 10 chairs during the 4 years.

The recruitment being done on a permanent position from one of the partner, the

selection committee must obey the rules of the recruiting institutions. We just

require that IDEX be represented within the committee, and that the position be

fully open to international applicants, even when not yet French speakers.

The selection committee select one candidate and send its CV and motivation of

the decision to the IDEX executive committee, which decides to grant the IDEX

chair upon advisory opinion from the Academic senate.

Developments envisaged: Two years after, the assessment we made of the

program is mixed:

the need to prepare the recruitment sufficient in advance (at least 18 months

are needed before the recruitment settled) was a serious drawback,

the current limitations of the French environment (in particular salaries, lack

of flexibility, etc) make top level recruitments difficult,

despite the relatively large number of candidates discussed since autumn

2013 (at least 15 candidates) and the efforts made, the results were very

limited: by the end of 2015, only three scientists accepted the offer (all of

them recruited in 2015).

for the non‐successful Chairs, either the candidate level was considered

insufficient, or it was the appropriate level but the candidate refused.

But the 3 successful recruitments of 2015 were also obtained though progress in

our procedure. In particular, in order to tackle the difficulties related to salary

conditions, in two of the three cases a particular administrative agreement was

necessary, with several partners contributing to the salary of a single person.


name of employer)

Methods implemented: The basic contract is a regular contract from the employer

institution. As mentioned above, administrative agreements could be found to

merge several partners’ contribution.



24


UPSaclay offers in principle the possibility to recruit on a UPSaclay position. But

many constraints remain, so this will be implemented pragmatically within the

progressive integration described in Part 2 below.

Remuneration policy

Methods implemented: It varies with the employer institutions, from strict rules

within universities and EPST (CNRS, INRA) to maximum flexibility with some

“grandes écoles” like HEC, or research organizations under EPIC status (CEA)

Developments envisaged: After a few successive failures, in 2015 we have started

to recruit with more attractive remunerations combining several contracts. This

shall be continuated, however it will stay restricted to only specific cases.

Career management

Methods implemented: So far it remains of the concern of the main employer.

Developments envisaged: Not yet discussed

Planned supporting

resources

Methods implemented: the initial package given by IDEX (often in complement of

another package given by the host institution, such as lab infrastructure) is

intended to accelerate the integration of the recruited researcher into excellence

research projects within UPSaclay.

Developments envisaged: a more specific attention shall be given to facilitate the

insertion of the chair parson within the UPSaclay research, in particular providing

administrative help and access to high potential students for PhDs.

Principal recruitments

1‐ Big Data for innovation – X, Inria, TélécomParis‐Tech Name: Yanlei Diao

PhD @ UC Berkeley in 2005

Since then: Associate professor at University of Massachusetts Amherst 2‐ Big Data for e‐Science – UPSud, Inria Name: Isabelle Guyon

PhD UPMC 1989

Stays @ AT&T Bell Labs, ETH Zurich, …

Present: independent researcher and consultant, Adjunct Prof. @ NYU, President ChaLearn organization,…

3‐ Spatial Instrumentation – UPSud Name : Bruno Maffei

PhD Université Paris Sud in 1994

Stays @ Caltech, Queen Mary College, Cardiff University

Since 2006: The University of Manchester (present: Senior Lecturer)



25

Number and funds totalled over the period

Doctoral

students Post‐doc Tenure track High potential

Number of recruitments made solely with the IDEX funds

(excepted LABEX)

172 108 0 1

Funds devoted to these recruitments by the IDEX

17.7 M€ 5.4 M€ 0 120 k€

Number of recruitments made with joint IDEX/IDEX partners'

investments

26 0 0 3


1.34 M€ 0 0 1.5 M€

Number of recruitments made with joint IDEX/Labex

investments

0 0 0 0


0 0 0 0

How are these instruments used to serve the strategic orientations of the IDEX?

As mentioned above, no positions were freed for direct recruitment by the Initiative. However, a large fraction of the recruitments were in practice made on subjects directly related to the 23 major scientific projects managed by the Initiative (the 11 LABEX plus the 12 LIDEX, see §1.5.3 for details), with an increasing coherence over time. We reviewed each year the 300 permanent research or teaching/research positions available yearly within Paris‐Saclay members. For instance, the percentage of recruitments made in the scientific perimeter of the LABEX was 43% in 2013, 57% in 2014, while for the LIDEX it was 9,7% in 2014. National organisms have also contributed to increase the coherence of the recruitment policy. For instance, in 2015 the CNRS has, for the first time, announced two job openings dedicated to one of the Paris‐Saclay laboratories on “data science and big data analysis”, a scientific priority of the IDEX.

Alongside permanent recruitments, the partners also supported the IDEX or other PIA projects (Equipex, IDEFI) by different means (PhD fellowships, technical staff, etc), though we are not able at present to provide a quantitative analysis.

More recently, discussions among partners in the context of the Paris‐Saclay site agreement with the MENESR led to the definition of a human resources policy oriented towards



26

excellence and attractiveness for the period 2015‐2019. The new policy will gradually orient the majority of recruitments towards the strategic research, training and technological transfer axes defined in common. For this purpose, a multi‐year process will be set up in 2016. It will be associated to a quality charter, offering a list of good practices, and a monitoring process of recruitment over several years. A shared team "Data acquisition and data monitoring" will be created.

Excellence Chairs Program

This other important tool was described in details in the table “High scientific and technical potential” above.

The Jean d’Alembert visitors program

In view of the difficulties to attract top‐level researchers through the Chairs program, we decided to launch the high level visitors program "Jean d'Alembert", in the summer 2015. This allows highly qualified foreign scientists to carry out long term research (from 6 to 12 months) in one of the Université Paris‐Saclay research centers. Scientists and scholars of all nationalities and disciplines may apply, to two different sub‐programs (junior and senior). Three deadlines of evaluation of the applications are scheduled, the first one being December 31, 2015. The new research departments of UPSaclay are in charge of attracting and evaluating the candidates.

We have no particular internal recruitment policy. The excellence chair program, as well as the Jean d’Alembert fellowships, aims mainly at attracting foreign scientists, or French scientists having based abroad.

Support to ERC applicants

Today UPSaclay host 115 laureates for an estimated total budget of 200M€, and ranks 3rd in Europe behind Oxford and Cambridge. Since 2013 we have made a major effort to disseminate information and good practices, provide applicants with support throughout the application process (re‐reading projects, specific training for auditions, with the help of a specialized agency). More than 200 candidates were advised in 3 years, with positive impact in particular at Starting grant level where the success rate of trained applicants went up to 27 % in 2015, compared to 19% and 10% respectively at French and European level. Since 2015 we also provide grants (up to 50k€) to applicants rated A but not selected, in order to help them focus on their ERC project for the next call.

1.5.3) Research and training

What are the strategic lines with regard to research and training?

With more than 300 hundred research structures (laboratories, networks, etc.) and hundreds of diplomas on offer, our educational and research landscape is incredibly rich but also highly fragmented. As a result the individual visibility of our 18 institutions is less than it should be and we have difficulty attracting the best students, researchers and companies. This is why our IDEX focused on promoting overall coherence and clearly defined strategic lines in education, research and technological transfer.



27

The excellence projects: the LABEX, LIDEX and other instruments

Our first priority in research was to promote ambitious, inter‐institutional excellence projects that focused resources on major scientific issues and promoted multidisciplinary approaches.

The 11 LABEX directly attached to our IDEX cover a large part of our scientific, pedagogic and valorization strategy (half of the IDEX annual budget) and have had an enormous structural impact by mobilizing and strengthening our research capacity in key subjects. However the LABEX were selected on an individual basis, before an overall strategy of University Paris Saclay had been defined and, as a result, they did not cover all our key scientific and socio‐economic priorities. Rather than spread the extra IDEX funding throughout our perimeter, we therefore chose to widen the LABEX approach to key strategic areas by restricting funding to a few, carefully selected and well‐funded projects that we called “LIDEX”.

This approach thus provides a unified framework for our research action plan, it enables us to start reorganizing Paris‐Saclay teams and laboratories around key scientific challenges rather than around individual institutions, makes it easier to cover the continuum from research and education to valorization and facilitates the emergence of a restricted number of fields in which Université Paris‐Saclay can aim to be a top 10 international actor.

The selection process of LIDEX involved a three step process: (1) pre‐selection by the institutions (research VPs at member institutions + IDEX steering committee) based on strategic positioning (and not on scientific quality); (2) ranking by an international panel, composed of around 30 high‐level scientific experts; (3) final decision on number of projects and budget by the IDEX steering committee (respecting the ranking of the international panel).

The calls were launched as rapidly as possible (2012 and 2013) to enable them to obtain results within the probationary phase of the IDEX. Twelve projects were selected for a total budget of more than a quarter of the probationary phase IDEX budget (16,6 M€ initially, plus 1.3 M€ after a mid‐term review). This investment is considered as seed money: over the long term, if the projects are successful the financial support will come from other sources than the IDEX. Both LABEX and LIDEX are monitored in similar fashion (scientifically and admistratively). In order to integrate them into a global coherent strategy, the IDEX research director is a member of all the steering committees. In the near future, the idea is to rely more heavily on the newly created scientific departments (see below).

The IDEX consortium also took advantage of the PIA national dynamics of EQUIPEX, National Research Infrastructures, preindustrial demonstrators, IHU and RHU, IDEFI, etc. IDEX Members’ teams coordinate 54 such projects, and are partners of 69 more. Although the FCS manages only 11 LABEX and 2 IDEFI, care has been taken that all are considered by the research departments in their strategic brainstorming, to ensure that they contribute to the development of excellence in the IDEX perimeter, in synergy with IDEX projects.

The “Research Institutes”

The second key element of our research strategic plan is the creation of research institutes by reorganizing and merging existing research teams and laboratories of the various Paris‐



28

Saclay partner institutions. Most, but not all, of these institutes will be located in new buildings and they will form a flagship network of labs, characterized by:

- focusing on research subjects closely related to a socio‐economic challenge, or corresponding to a major interdisciplinary scientific field;

- concentrating a significant fraction of the scientific Paris‐Saclay potential in their field, often associated to high‐level or unique scientific infrastructures and platforms;

- being the result of the merger of several pre‐existing laboratories or teams that used to work on similar or complementary fields, but depended on different institutional partners and were located in different geographic places.

Several of these units were officially created on January 1st, 2015: the Paris‐Saclay Neuro‐Science Institute; the Institute of Integrative Biology of the Cell (this is the largest merger, regrouping 7 pre‐existing CNRS, CEA and UPSud labs; it meets the Jalon R4 "Launch of the first interdisciplinary institute" on schedule); the Center of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology; the House of Human Sciences of Paris‐Saclay; the Paris‐Saclay Plant Sciences Institute.

These are the first examples of a strategic trend that will, in the long term, completely transform the Paris‐Saclay research landscape, and make it more attractive and efficient. The reorganizations also provide an opportunity to reconsider the Master and PhD offer and ensure a much stronger and optimized integration to the research centers.

Other Institutes will be created in the forthcoming years. To give an idea of the importance of this trend, let us mention that, among the life‐sciences community alone, nearly one thousand permanent researchers will have moved in the period 2014‐2020.

A major collective transformation: the Master degrees of Université Paris‐Saclay

As planned in our IDEX application, we focused our effort on the Master level, for which over 1000 programs were being offered for the second year of Master alone. Our aim was to evaluate the existing offer, and then to restructure it, eliminating duplicates, emphasizing curricula targeting new socio‐economic trends, and fostering synergies.

The first step consisted in identifying the criteria that a Master should fulfill to be accredited by Université Paris‐Saclay. Our objectives were:

To offer programs developed in a research‐intensive environment, relying on multi‐institutional teams of researchers and professors;

To offer programs with good perspectives in terms of employability and job opportunities;

To offer attractive programs with high international visibility;

To provide interdisciplinarity education.

To reach such ambitious objectives, we provided financial and scientific support and implemented a large‐scale structured policy to pool, when relevant, the skills of different institutions (research organizations as well as higher education institutions) and guarantee that all Université Paris‐Saclay accredited Masters were research intensive.



29

To build the overall coherence of our Master offer we organized a large number of meetings within the Schools of Université Paris‐Saclay, as well as several institutional and scientific meetings to define both large and highly specific masters (Physics, Pure and Applied Mathematics, etc.)

We also collectively designed a general set of guidelines for the Master degrees, covering both program definition but also practical constraints (such as limiting the need for transport for students of any given course). The key rule is that all students of a program have the same rights and responsibilities, independently of their institution of enrollment. This is why one “referent institution” provides all educational support of each course for all students.

As a result:

Université Paris‐Saclay has been accredited for 48 Master programs (450 courses of either M1 or M2 level – see annex) and the programs are proposed to students since September 2015. Currently 8200 students are registered (about 80% of all Master students within the perimeter of Paris‐Saclay institutions).

The important work done on the Master offer has strengthened our 8 Schools as places for discussion, coordination and project implementation in the educational sphere.

In the wake of this very important transformation, we are now funding several initiatives to ensure the continued improvement of our practices: (1) creation of an integrated network of all Students Affairs departments; (2) overall assessment of programs; (3) centralized follow up of professional careers of graduates; (4) support to educational innovation; (5) support to languages and intercultural training.

Doctoral training – strategic lines

One of our key initial target was to set up a strong, highly reputed Université Paris‐Saclay's doctoral degree. This project required two actions:

1. transferring the doctoral degree from the members to Université Paris‐Saclay, which was finalized on September 1st, 2015;

2. deeply restructure doctoral training, setting up 20 thematic or disciplinary doctoral schools for ≈5500 doctoral students, and a unique doctoral college in charge of coordinating the doctoral schools and organizing transversal training or events.

Setting up this new structure represented an important challenge because of the number of doctoral candidates, doctoral schools and institutions involved. We clarified the missions and responsibilities of each participant, and systemized and extended best‐practices. We have thus implemented the same selection procedure for all doctoral candidates of each school, whatever the source of funding, by the means of selection commissions (phase 1: selection from academic records; phase 2: interview with the candidate).

To ensure oversight, we decided to use ISO 9001 standard for the implementation, control and monitoring of the doctoral training activities within the Université Paris‐Saclay. To assess the quality of our doctorate degree compared to other research universities, we use the Principles for Innovative Doctoral Training published by the European Commission (2011) as a guideline.



30

Estimated for the total duration

of the probationary period, and

for IDEX funding only

Themes Number of researchers concerned

Number of students concerned

Funds allocated

Specific investment of the IDEX in research

LIDEX:

IDEX Chairs:

1,600

30

A few PhD

≈300/y

18 M€

3.5 M€

Specific investment of the IDEX in training

Doctorate:

Educ. innov./Lang:

e‐Learning:

N.A.

80

2,500

172

1000

30,000 (2015)

18 M€

2.3 M€

1.85 M€

Joint IDEX/IDEX partner investments

Only in

innovation/transfer,

see corresp. tables

Joint IDEX/Labex investments

Emerging subjects at

interfaces :

Science and Society:

Communication/Int:

≈100

≈ 100

≈ 7,000

N.A.

1,000

N.A.

1.5 M€

≈ 0.5 M€

0.3 M€

Joint IDEX/IDEFI investments IDEFI IVICA 20 100 2.2 M€

Joint IDEX/other PIA project investments

0 0 0 0



31

The UPSaclay teams participate to 120 PIA projects, of which they coordinate 54. All have a strong impact on the quality of our research, for instance by providing high quality experimental platform (specifically in Life Sciences), and for instance departments paid a special attention to register these platform and take them into account for elaboration their strategy. We describe below only PIA projects that have a direct impact on UPSaclay governance and may participate in elaboration its strategy.

PIA1 projects Key structural impacts Synergies with the partners external to

the Initiative

Other contributions of the project to the Initiative

Any enhancement of the project potential

by the Initiative

11 LABEX are

managed

within IDEX

Beyond the scientific

structuring effect,

already one LABEX

(Saclay Plant Sciences)

and two LIDEX

(Integrative Biology of

Cells and NeuroSaclay)

already resulted in the

creation of merged

new laboratories as

interdisciplinary

institutes

The LABEX manage

independently their

own budget, but

they are fully

integrated in

departments (for

research activities)

and schools (for

education)

With the LIDEX

launched within IDEX

funds, the LABEX are

the perimeter of

Excellence of

UPSaclay

12 EQUIPEX are

managed by

UPSaclay teams

within

perimeters

High performance

experimental platform

tend to structure a

scientific community

around their results

All EQUIPEX are

fully integrated

within research

departments and

LABEX steering

committees.

IRT System X

This IRT operates in a

critical field for the

UPSaclay teams, and

provide key access to

companies working in

this fields.

The FCS today and

tomorrow UPSaclay

are represented in

the IRT Board and

in its scientific

council

The certain of the IST

department will allow

to create stronger

links with the IRT

System X

ITE PS2E

ITE IPVF

ITE Vedecom

These 3 ITE all work in

the field of either

renewable energy or

clean transport

(Vedecom).

The FCS today and

tomorrow UPSaclay

are represented in

the ITE Boards and

scientific councils

The UPSaclay “Energy

Initiative”about to be

launched has been

elaborated in synergy

with the ITE



32

Are these strategic lines embodied by a specific structure (e.g. collegium, departments, institutes, schools, etc.)?

The statutes of the ComUE “Université Paris‐Saclay” (published by decree on December 31, 2014) define in their article 15 the “components of coordination” as intermediate structures of the University. They cover the domains of research and education. Each coordination component has as main mission to propose to the University Board a strategy in its field of expertise, and to coordinate its implementation. The internal rules of the university, approved by the board on november 4, 2015, create three different coordinating components: the “departments” for research, the “schools” for education, and the “doctoral college” in charge of the Ph. D. degree. There are currently ten departments and eight schools, but their perimeter and number may evolve in the future as a result of their evaluation.

These statutes institutionalize coordinating structures that had been created by the FCS Campus Paris‐Saclay in 2012 and transfer them to the University. They have been key in the successful launch of our different actions and the progressive institutional transformation of our landscape. Their responsibilities will continue to increase over the coming years.

What competences are exercised by these new entities?

These components are key to the project, because they create common spaces where the different IDEX partners, scientific communities and actors (students, academic staff, managers) can meet and work together. The collective construction would not be possible without them.

For example, the departments are currently responsible for (1) proposing a shared research strategy to the Board; (2) supervising the implementation and monitoring of all actions associated to the strategy; (3) developing collaborative tools and animation activities among the different scientific communities; (4) identifying needs, skills and competences for future recruitments by the members, IDEX chairs or visitor’s program, in connection with the shared strategy. In order to progress towards a shared strategy and identify our main lines of actions, each department has elaborated i) a map of our scientific potential, ii) a critical SWOT analysis at the national and international levels and iii) proposals to tackle the main conclusions of the critical analysis (examples in Appendix B, executive summaries (in French) are available at: https://share.universite‐paris‐saclay.fr/index.php/s/SAojEITvgykBCAH ). At present, we are in the process of analysing all this information, with the goal of adopting our first decisions by September 2016.

Schools share similar missions on education, with enhanced operational responsabilities on the UPSaclay Master programs. They will be heavily involved in the elaboration of the educational offer for the next accreditation (cf Part 2 and 3, Appendix B).

1.5.4) Policy for transfer to industry

What are the main successes of the IDEX policy for transfer to industry?

IDEX Initiatives

The aim of our IDEX project in terms of transfer was to build on existing tools and assets



33

from the members and complete them with dedicated instruments, in order to create an integrated and complete system to support transfer. Our first effort was to develop a comprehensive Innovation chain of tools going from aware‐ness of researchers and students to seed funding for start‐ups. The tools were designed in coherence with the SATT, which started operating in October 2014, with a focus on matura‐tion of lab results. We will limit our description here to the tools dedicated to (i) assets de‐tection and valuation, (ii) enhancement of industrial partnerships.

I. Detection, assessment and support to innovative projects

1) Awareness

* Student entrepreneurship. Our Student Entrepreneurship Center (PEIPS) has been awarded the national label PEPITE, funded by the MENESR and supported by the IDEX (1.2M€ for 2014 and 2015). The program reaches over 4000 students through conferences, seminars and workshops. More than 2000 students registered for specialization courses (delivering training credits) on entrepreneurship. 165 students have benefited from tutorship and incubation services, with a total of 57 start‐ups created.

* IP and Market survey tools are available for the whole Université Paris‐Saclay Community.

* Innovation Standard. To ensure stakeholders understand each other and to foster technology transfer, we have developed a common innovation language, used to define all innovative projects and organized training sessions for Technology Transfer Officers, professors, lecturers, researchers, students, startupers, as well as private sector partners.

2) Detection

* Mapping laboratories and companies: we are developing a web portal giving access to a complete database of both labs and companies skills/expertise. The aim is to enhance the relationships between labs and companies, mainly SME.

* IDEX pre‐maturation lab call: this proof of concept Call aims to improve the TRL level of projects. 84 projects have been funded (out of 145) for a total of 5,5 M€. 40% of selected SATT projects were initially funded by this IDEX initiative (see below).

* IDEX pre‐maturation student call: this proof of concept call funds student projects. A total of 46 projects have been funded, (600 k€ in 2 calls with around 10K per project). They have led to the creation of 11 startups between 2014 and 2015: Sidemash (UPSud), Twelve (Télécom ParisTech), Tryon (CentraleSupélec), OptiMiam (X), Madjoh (CentraleSupélec), HYPRA (HEC Paris), UWave (IOGS), Biomodex (CentraleSupélec), Riminder (CentraleSupélec), Occi (X), Breaz it (CentraleSupélec).

3) Maturation: These activities have been managed by the SATT and are described below.

4) Prototyping: The Schools FabLab (IOGS, IUT CACHAN, X) and the EQUIPEX FabLab Digiscope have created a FabLab network closely linked to the pre‐maturation and maturation actions. The IDEX has launched a feasibility study for a design centre open to researchers, students and companies to promote cross‐fertilization.

5) Funding: A 60 M€ seed fund project has been launched to complete the value chain. The



34

level of investment will be around 300 k€ for a first round up to 2 M€ by June 2016. This fund will be backed by a growth fund at a second level and by a development fund at a third level. These three levels of funding will ensure the best possible financing conditions to support the development of high potential start‐ups.

II. Enhancement of Industrial partnership to involve partners in the early stages of the pro‐cess

1‐ Big Data Business convention

In order to strengthen relationships between the industry and University Paris‐Saclay we are organizing large scale Business conventions. The first one, on Big Data, proved the potential of the initiative with 550 attendees (with a 50/50 split between academics and industry rep‐resentatives) and panels on topics such as personal data protection, project funding, data science and domain specifics in health, energy, marketing and transport applications as well as a vast exhibition area.



35

2‐ Industrial Chair on Frugal Innovation

Designation Industriel Chair I3F (Industrie, Ingénierie, Innovation, Frugale )

Socio‐economic sector Industry and Services

Research themes involved New process of innovation, new method of engineering, new business

models, new skills

Names of the partners within this sector

Carrefour, prospects : Essilor, Danone, PSA…

Form (framework agreement, contract, etc.) and nature of the contribution obtained (payments in €, provision of human resources, equipment sharing, sponsorship, skills‐based sponsorships, etc.)

IDEX 1: 550 k€

Sponsorship convention (Carrefour 2015 , …): 240k€

Expertises of the IDEX members (TélécomParisTech, IOGS, AgroParisTech)

: life sciences, photonic, ICT, sociology and economy, management

Network of Fablabs of IDEX members

Flagship result or achievement obtained thanks to the IDEX

Multidisciplinary research program

Funding (including IP [Intellectual Property] revenues) received from companies under these collaborations

2012 2013 2014 2015

Other funding received from external partners on the project (ANR, Europe, etc.)

ANR‐Models of

open innovation

(2013‐2016)TPT

Pre‐maturation

IDEX projet Joka

Jobs TPT

Cloud Computing

–ANR 2014‐2017

TPT

« Centre de

ressources sur la

conception dans

l’agriculture » –

INRA TPT



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3‐ IDEFI Institut Villebon Georges Charpak (IVICA)

Designation Institut Villebon – Georges Charpak (IDEFI IVICA)

Socio‐economic sector

Science & Technologies with a choice between two tracks:

Bio‐engineering

Physics, Computer science and Mathematics engineering

Research themes involved

Pilot structure of educationnal innovation with strong values: Diversity, Crea‐tivity, Openness and Mutual assistance The objective of Institut Villebon ‐ Georges Charpak targets motivated stu‐dents that are interested in science but may sometimes be the victim of self‐censorship due to their social environment, or are put off by the formal na‐ture of the standard higher education offer. The objective is to allow them to obtain a Licence degree and to gain the confidence and motivation necessary to continue their studies at Master’s level or an engi‐neer’s degree in a “grande école”.


Areva, Orange, SNCF, Société Générale, Solucom

Form (framework agreement, contract, etc.)

and nature of the contribution obtained

(payments in €, provision of human resources, equipment sharing,

sponsorship, skills‐based sponsorships, etc.)

With their support to “Institut Villebon – Georges Charpak” through the ParisTech foundation (partner of IVICA), these companies wish to commit themselves to foster emergence of the high potential scientists of tomorrow,

They actively contribute to the students training through:

Their funding;

Their participation to the governance as Members of the Strategic council and of the “Conseil de perfectionnement” of the Licence degree;

Their participation in students recruitment;

Their involvement in the build up of students professional project: jobs presentations, conferences, ateliers participatifs, visits of companies, etc.

Each student has a tutor from industry.

Internship offers.


Construction of a new training that combines acquisition of knowledge and competencies and personal development. A lot of room is given over to practical experiments project‐based inductive learning. Near one hundred students

Funding (including IP [Intellectual Property] revenues) received from companies under these

collaborations

2012 2013 2014 2015

110 000 170 000 200 000 215 000


10 000



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4‐ LIDEX and LABEX initiatives

To show the diversity of approaches we will highlight here 4 initiatives on this topic.

4‐1‐ LIDEX NanoDesign

Designation Affiliate program NanoDesign Patform

Socio‐economic sector Embedded systems, sensors, computing

Research themes involved

Devices design and characterization

Modeling

Design kit conception/ design flow improvement

Circuit design based on functional architecture

Function proof (performance, reliability, efficiency…)

Implementation of architecture in full components

Software integration, validation and tools


Industrial partners : Thales, Mentor Graphics, Sorin group, Airbus, renault

Form (framework agreement, contract, etc.)

and nature of the contribution obtained

(payments in €, provision of human resources, equipment sharing,

sponsorship, skills‐based sponsorships, etc.)

Subscription agreement

Payment in €


III‐V modulator on Si

Hybrid Guidonic on Si

Reliability modeling and analysis of complex nano‐components (STT‐

MRAM MTJ)

Démonstration d’un dispositif de refroidissement local de

microprocesseurs

Funding (including IP [Intellectual Property] revenues) received from companies under these

collaborations

2013 2014 2015 2016

0 0 0 240 000


285000 730000 925000



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4.2‐ LABEX Saclay‐Plant Science (SPS): Between 2012 and 2014, 8 innovation projects were supported by SPS (350 k€), among which 7 are in collaboration with private companies. 3 patents resulted from these projects. 3 projects coordinated by SPS teams were funded through the IDEX pre‐maturation call. 2 projects were submitted to the SATT Paris‐Saclay Maturation call and one was recently selected (502 k€).

Designation LABEX SPS

Socio‐economic sector Crop protectionBiological control, biostimulation on potato

Research themes involved Biological control, biostimulation on potato


1) Comité Nord plant de pomme de terre (CNPPT) 2) Semences, Innovation, Protection, Recherche et Environnement (SIPRE)


Consortium agreement and research contract Provision of human resources (7 person/months for the initial project + 36 per‐son/month for a CIFRE PhD student + 1 person full‐time since February 2014)


Consortium agreement and research contract Provision of human resources (7 person/months for the initial project + 36 per‐son/month for a CIFRE PhD student + 1 person full‐time since February 2014)


2012 2013 2014 2015

0 0 0 0


DIM‐ASTREA: post‐doc 1 year

ANRT: CIFRE PhD funding

ANR 2015‐2018 (COMBI‐CONTROL Project)



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4.3‐ LABEX NANOSACLAY and PALM: These chose to support teams in the first phases of val‐orization aspects (proof of concept studies, development of pilots…). In total, from 2012 to 2014 (3 calls), 36 projects were proposed, 20 were accepted including 11 from NanoSaclay teams, of which 4 were further supported by IDEX pre‐maturation call, and 1 has been pro‐posed to the SATT Paris‐Saclay. In addition, 2 start‐up companies were launched from pro‐jects directly supported by the LABEX: SILTENE in 2012 and AJELIS in 2014 (selected by the Worldwide Innovation Challenge 2030). Up to now, 10 patents have been applied directly resulting from work financed by the LABEX.

Designation NanoSaclay, project IACA

Socio‐economic sector Nanosciences and nanotechnologies

Research themes involved Nanobiotechnologie


/


/


Patent creation of a common laboratory with BioWinTech creation of 2 start‐up : SILTENE (2012), AJELIS (2014)


2012 2013 2014 2015

0 0 0 0


Fibre Innovation Award, Optics‐valley 2013

260k€ IDEX Prematura‐tion call attribut‐ed to 4 projects

ANR, project MIMATIC 1000k€ attribut‐ed by SATT for 2 projects



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4.4‐ LABEX LERMIT

Designation LABEX LERMIT

Socio‐economic sector Health

Research themes involved Cancer, Heart, Lung, Immunology, Infectiology

Targets; Resistance; Delivery


Biotechs, mid‐Pharma and big pharma: eg. Sanofi, Ipsen, Drugabilis, Actelion, Quantum genomics…


Partnership Agreement with Sanofi for a collaborative project has been signed.


Project valorization is organized in complete coordination between Lermit funding, MedCom support (LERMIT’s Maturation and Early drugability Committee), IDEX prematuration support program and SATT maturation program.

14 projects have been funded for a total of 4.8M€ by the Lermit research program. On 11 projects supported by MedCom (130 K€) 6 of them have been supported by IDEX Paris‐Saclay pre‐maturation program (7 projects submitted).

3 projects, from MedCom support and IDEX support have been selected (out of 3 submitted) by SATT maturation program. Two of them are projects initially funded by the LabEx LERMIT, and the other one has been detected and supported by the MedCom.


2012 2013 2014 2015

0 0 70 000€ 110 000€


2 700 K€ from ANR, EUROPE, NIH… details in ANR report

4 ANR grants:

1200 K€



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Share of these three partnerships in the funding received from companies out of all the IDEX project actions (as a %)

We cannot give a reliable answer to this question.

Numbers of patents granted, start‐up created, total Licences etc. on the 4 years 2012‐2015 are given within the indicators tables. They show a clear upward trend.

What relations are established with the SATT (society for accelerating technology trans‐fer)? For what results?

The SATT started operating in October 2014 by launching a call for projects, which selected 10 projects (out of 36), of which 5 had been funded by the IDEX pre‐maturation call (see above) for a global budget of 6.2M€ (56% SATT, 30% IDEX members and 14% industrials partners). The second call for projects has had similar results with 15 of the 33 pre‐selected projects having been financed by the IDEX pre‐maturation call. Projects having gone through the IDEX pre‐maturation process are twice as likely to be selected by the SATT and the SATT team considers these “IDEX pre‐maturation” projects better qualified for success than the others. We will therefore continue the pre‐maturation call for projects in the future.

What areas are excluded from the SATT's scope of cooperation? How are these exclusions justified?

There is no area excluded from the scope of cooperation. The SATT and IDEX share their contacts of industrial companies and SMEs and have defined a common process to inform the IDEX Members. The SATT is creating a large network of SMEs and start‐ups.

1.5.5) Student life and life on the Campus

Université Paris‐Saclay aims to provide all students with international standard studying conditions and campus life facilities including housing, athletics, culture, social and associative life. Our first step to harmonise and integrate existing services has been to create a common student card for our 70 000 students providing access to facilities, for all students (L to D) of Université Paris‐Saclay member institutions. We have also set up a welcome service for international students to facilitate administrative issues, which we plan to extend in the future (cf Part 3 below).

To support the creation of a common identity and transversal campus life, the IDEX project has exclusively funded initiatives that associate students from several member institutions, and are open to all. Newly created student housing are open to all students and specifically aim to mix university and grandes écoles students.

With the same key objective in mind, we have launched initiatives to (1) mutualise all athletics and catering facilities; (2) set up a central Learning Center for all students and staff; (3) develop a shared policy in terms of addiction prevention and deepen collaboration and mutualisation of health services between all partners.



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1.5.6) Culture, Science and Society

Université Paris‐Saclay has created an overall framework for scientific and cultural outreach, called the “Diagonale Paris‐Saclay” (http://www.ladiagonale‐paris‐saclay.fr/), which develops actions in three areas (scientific mediation, arts, and cultural/scientific heritage). These include large scale projects (“Maison d’initiation et de sensibilisation aux sciences” for primary and secondary schools, “Arts & Sciences CURIOSITas” festival, European Heritage Days, International Year of Light and Light‐Based Technologies, etc.), as well as calls for projects to develop common actions and synergies between research laboratories, associations, collectives and artists and instruments to support shared and open governance, workgroups, open events, etc. The publics targeted by the actions of the la Diagonale include:

Primary and secondary school students: for example, between 2013 and 2015, 15 workshops set up by 25 doctoral students and 20 academic staff from 25 laboratories, with up to 60 primary and secondary school classes benefitting from these actions.

Local community and inhabitants: e.g. 1200 visitors for the 2015 Heritage Days; 3200 visitors for the 2015 edition of the CURIOSITas festival, etc.

Université Paris‐Saclay staff and students: development of short conferences of scientific diffusion within the institutions called the “Science Break” conferences (5 in 2014, with 100 persons each time).

1.5.7) Construction of the identity

For all the students enrolled in courses developed or promoted thanks to the IDEX funding,

does or will (specify the time frame) enrolment take place in the "Target Universi‐ty?

Given the large diversity of students’ history and the high proportion of double‐degrees at M2 level, it was decided that students would be enrolled: for Master students, at their institution of origin or in priority at the referent institution of the course, and for PhD students at the higher education institution supervising their laboratory of attachment. The status of public higher education institution of Université Paris‐Saclay will allow more flexibility in the future, but this will be implemented pragmatically within the progressive integration described in Part 2 below.

does or will enrolment take place jointly in one of the member establishments of the "Target University"?

The application for a given UPSaclay course is made on the Université Paris‐Saclay web site, and the student is then directed to its institution of enrolment. All students enrolled at a Member institution receive a student card with one side dedicated to Université Paris‐Saclay, the other site is dedicated to the institution of enrolment.

how is the feeling of belonging to the "Target University" developed?

The development of a common identity is key to the success of Université Paris‐Saclay. It requires a long‐term effort, building up on existing feelings of belonging towards existing institutions and relying on a stakeholder’s engagement strategy. We are using the main



43

classical approaches to create, as fast as possible, a sense of belonging allowing shared accountability, decision making, joint learning and action amongst the very different types of stakeholders (founding members, students, staffs, scientific and socio‐economic communities).

This relies on different elements of the day‐to‐day life of our students and staff:

for students, beyond the development of Université Paris‐Saclay degrees, the common student card implemented in 2015 is an important step forward;

for students and staff alike, participation to the election of governing bodies makes them part of the same community, as well as common calls for projects for campus life and shared facilities (Learning Centre, athletics facilities, catering, housing, etc.);

for administrative staff, the priority to internal recruitment and the facilitation of internal mobility within Université Paris‐Saclay is a strong element to create a feeling of belonging;

for academic staff, a wide participation in all IDEX actions (Appendix B);

for management and leadership teams of the member institutions, shared strategic accountability and responsibility at the level of project management and decision process.

In terms of communication, we organised strategic and operational workshops to explore the 3 key communication concepts (identity, positioning, offer). We then decided to adopt a corporate brand based on consistency of logotypes (3 levels of amalgam), consistency of contents (Université Paris‐Saclay expresses the key messages and makes corporate tools available) and consistency of contents (work in progress with common language elements).

We also rely on push actions (mainly broadcast information to all stakeholders or target particular stakeholder groups using various channels e.g. email, letter, webcasts, podcasts, videos, leaflets, events as well as pull communications (information made available through website essentially: www.universite‐paris‐saclay.fr).

Finally, the implementation of a Université Paris‐Saclay email alias is a symbolic step in terms of identity as well as the creation of a Université Paris‐Saclay address book, and more generally the development of a coordinated communication policy by all member institutions.

What is or will be (specify the time frame) the formal link between the "Target University" and the researchers and the lecturer‐researchers recruited thanks to the IDEX funding?

Given the diversity of human resources management rules between Member institutions, the rule so far was that the researchers and lecturer‐researchers recruited thanks to IDEX funding would be under direct contract with the host institution, so that all staff in a same research team would be on the same footing. The status of public higher education institution of Université Paris‐Saclay will allow more flexibility in the future, but this will be implemented pragmatically within the progressive integration described in Part 2 below.

Indicate how, thanks to this identity, the "Target University" does or will (specify the time frame) simplify interfacing with the socio‐economic world and become its point of contact.



44

The president of Université Paris‐Saclay is the privileged contact for national and local political authorities, and the 2015‐2020 “Contrat de Plan Etat‐Région” was negotiated directly by Université Paris‐Saclay with the State and Paris‐Region authority. A VP of Paris‐Region and the president of the “plateau de Saclay” community of cities are members of the UPSaclay Board. International groups such as EDF, Crédit Agricole, PSA, SANOFI, Pasteur, Samsung etc. already have direct contacts with Université Paris‐Saclay. An example with PSA is described in Part 3.

1.5.8) International visibility

Our actions to develop an international identity for Université Paris‐Saclay aimed to promote awareness of our project amongst international students and research intensive universities worldwide.

To attract international students, we offered grants of c. 11k€ per year targeted initially towards high potential M1 students that were likely to continue in PhD. The call is advertised through the international links of Member institutions, which also ensure a pre‐screening of the applicants’ quality. The program started slowly with 67 students in 2013 but grew rapidly (131 in 2014, 166 in 2015). The number of applications increased even faster (selection ratio about 30% in 2015), together with the quality of applicants reported by the courses managers.

To develop international culture in research, we also offer research internships in foreign laboratories for last year Licence and Master students (98 grants of 6K€ awarded in 2015). These internship take place in laboratories that have close collaborations with a UPSaclay team, and students usually continue in Master or PhD with this team.

To increase our international visibility amongst our peers, several approaches have been used:

the presentation of our projects by our Member institutions to meetings of influential networks such as LERU (League of European Research Universities);

the network of CNRS representatives in foreign countries, thanks to which we signed MoU’s with NTU and NUS Singapore universities in May 2015;

the help of an international press office (since Jan 2015) which disseminates information on our project;

the network of scientific advisors in the French embassies: we recently had visits from ministries of higher education and research of Bayern, Japan, Kazakhstan, UK, Taïwan.

As for the presence in international rankings, we have made simulations for ARWU (18th global) and QS (37th global) to evaluate our potential, started implementing a common signature of publications mentioning UPSaclay, however the ComUE status is not sufficient for being ranked by major international ranking agencies. We are therefore continuing to work towards our target institution.



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1.5.9) Focus: remarkable achievements

The most remarkable achievements, presented in more details in the Summary and in previous sections of §1.5, are only briefly listed here:

Structuration of the Master and PhD offer, through the work of 8 schools, and accreditation of Université Paris‐Saclay to grant degrees;

Implementation of 10 research departments working on a shared research strategy;

Common Université Paris‐Saclay signature as of Sept. 2015;

First research institutes created in 2015;

Full chain of instruments to support innovation;

Common Université Paris‐Saclay student card;

International mobility program with grants for master students.



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2. PROJECTION INTO THE FUTURE

In the 2011 Paris‐Saclay IDEX project we committed ourselves to “build a world‐class research university, to approach the top ten of international rankings within ten years”. As described in section 1, during the past four years our actions have all been designed to prepare and facilitate the creation of an integrated research‐intensive university that will fulfill this ambition.

Today, all major milestones listed in the IDEX grant agreement for the probationary period have been achieved (cf §1.4). With the ComUE in place, we now have a higher education and research institution with a balanced governance representing the member institutions (Members council) and the academic community (Academic council), and managed by a compact administration Board including 6 external members (out of 26) that has already demonstrated it can take important decisions. Following the July 2013 law on higher education and research, the ComUE is the privileged institution on its territory for discussions with the State and local political authorities.

However critical steps remain to be taken:

increase the synergy and links between universities and “grandes écoles” and between “grandes écoles” themselves;

enhance our attractiveness for high level researchers, which is a key issue for our future;

promote transverse research institutes and precise our strategy in this field through a both a top‐down and bottom‐up process;

enhance the quality and attractiveness of our degrees at both the Master and Doctorate levels;

extend our reforms to the undergraduate level, and develop a high quality Université Paris‐Saclay undergraduate cycle;

finally, in order to be recognized as a world‐class research university, we must also increase the efficiency and agility of Université Paris‐Saclay organization, and progress towards more integration.

The way towards further integration will be structured around a few key principles and clearly defined missions. In particular:

the new university will lead all common projects (including the shared strategy for research) and deliver all standard university degrees (Licence, Master, Doctorate, etc.); it will develop a strong reputation (notably in global international rankings) and will allow brand names of its members to capitalize reputation in specialized thematic areas; it will favour the progressive synergy in the use of members ressources for the functioning of all common projects;

the “grandes écoles“ will retain a large degree of autonomy with budgets given by their respective ministries of “tutelle”, autonomous boards, recognized brand‐names and specific prerogatives; they will keep full mastership of the curricula elaboration, operation, and evolution for their specific degrees: “diplômes d’ingénieur”, ENS diploma, MBA,…



47

the research organizations will be key members in departments, schools, doctoral training as well as in pluridisciplinary institutes.

More generally, if the success of our previous actions gives us confidence in our capacity at achieving these steps, the real life experimentation that we have been running leads us to identify 6 critical conditions of success:

Students recruitment: currently universities must accept all students who have fulfilled basic prerequisites at the undergraduate level or at the first year of Master, whereas leading “grandes écoles” have extremely competitive entrance exams. o The ambition of Université Paris‐Saclay is to allow all undergraduate students to fulfil

their potential, regardless of their origin and educational history. However we believe that this will only be possible if Université Paris‐Saclay is allowed to practice active orientation at the entrance in Licence and during the three years of Bachelor’s degree, based on meeting clearly displayed prerequisites. This will require us to develop alternative courses, innovative teaching methods built on initiatives such as the IVICA IDEFI project, increase the use of digital methods to help students monitor their progress and ensure students are systematically guided and supported not only during their studies but also for their professional insertion.

o Top international universities build their reputation on the quality of their Master and Doctorate courses. While we already operate a careful selection process to access Doctorate, it is key that in the future Université Paris‐Saclay be allowed to select its Master students.

Governance: the existing practices of universities and grandes écoles clearly differ on this point: within universities, the boards are elected by the community and they then elect a president/director who is necessarily a member of the university, whereas within grandes écoles the boards have a large number of external members and may choose the president outside the institution. There is a strong consensus between members on the fact that the “target university” can be neither a standard French university nor a grande école. The status of the future university should enable a board with a large number of external members, in particular from the private sector, to ensure a broad and international perspective, whilst ensuring that the academic community retains involvement in the university life. A balanced governance extrapolated from that of the ComUE could be a basis for discussion, with a highly reactive independent board and a strong academic senate with oversight over all academic affairs.

Internal organization and legal status: The cohesion of an institution depends on overall coherence and the right degree of subsidiarity. This makes it necessary to emphasize complementarity between existing members. Similarly, the vertical cohesion of an institution requires finding the right balance between shared services ensuring economic efficiency, and extended application of the subsidiarity principle guaranteeing agility and autonomy. In the future, the legal status and internal rules and regulations will thus not only need to preserve a large autonomy and the fundamental missions of the different members, but also ensure that specific operations can be internally delegated. There is a strong consensus between members on this point, which is already being developed in the ComUE. The success of our common actions is a key enabler of institutional



48

transformation. There exists currently no fully satisfactory legal status for the institution we are building. We will therefore need the coordinated support of the French state in order to create the adequate legal framework.

Preserving existing reputations: the difficulty of creating a new identity increases exponentially when the existing institutions are highly visible. When various institutions have brands whose reputation stretches back centuries, abandoning them makes no sense and integrating them into a consortium is highly complex. In the case of Université Paris‐Saclay, we take as inspiration the model of institutions such as the Sloan School within MIT or the Kennedy School of Government within Harvard.

Geographical unity is a key success facilitator for institutional change. The real estate investment to create the new Université Paris‐Saclay is fundamental to our success and the upcoming move of key institutions such as AgroParisTech, CentraleSupélec, ENS Cachan, Télécom ParisTech will reinforce our unity. However it will be distributed over several years (2017 to 2019), while efficient transport linking the central Plateau de Saclay to other sites near Paris and to sites near Versailles is only scheduled for 2024.

Funding: the revenue per student we have is low compared to the world class universities we want to resemble. The help of IDEX has been crucial for funding the institutional transformation, increasing our visibility and reputation, and improving the quality of our research and education excellence. However, we must also increase our sources of revenues, from companies and international students in particular.

Our strategy for the next steps

To successfully face the challenges, we must keep up the pace of operational integration with the same approach as during the last four years, namely proving through pragmatic steps and emblematic projects that the model we are building is beneficial for the whole system and that no partner loses out from the process of consolidation of the new university. This pragmatic approach allowed us to successfully set up the important reform of our Master and Doctorate offer, and allows each partner to control the roadmap leading to the construction of the target university.

In summary:

we have created a higher education and research institution “Université Paris‐Saclay” with a legal status that allows to perform most key missions of an international research university: deliver Université Paris‐Saclay diplomas, define common educational programmes, design a shared research strategy, create links with international universities, etc.;

the ComUE status makes it possible to continue experimenting how the 18 member institutions can progressively take advantage of the centuries old diversity of French higher education system to enable the creation of our target university within a larger ecosystem of institutions.

Thus, besides continuing to implement our different strategic lines in education, research, innovation and international policy, our priority for the next period will be to move to the institutional and legal consequences of our new ways of functioning, after we have set up



49

operational bodies and demonstrated their efficiency. In this way the collective solidarity and unity of action will be strengthened step by step, on the road to the target university.

Our roadmap

As we did for Doctorate and Masters projects during the probationary period, the roadmap must respect the five‐yearly pace of site discussions and accreditation fixed by MENESR. So the main time scale for us will be the preparation of the next site agreement for the period 2020‐2024, along the trajectory agreed upon in the 2015‐2019 site agreement signed on July 20th, 2015. The 2020 deadline also corresponds to the finalisation of a number of key real estate projects that will help create a real city‐campus, an important criterion for success as mentioned above.

Key milestones for the period 2016‐2020 are listed in the table below, and major ones detailed below. The main steps of the IDEX trajectory can be summarized around two pivotal years, 2017 and 2019:

The first semester of 2017 corresponds to an intermediate step where the main organizational bodies of Université Paris‐Saclay (schools, departments, doctoral college) will have become fully operational, and based on this experience and further progress on common services we plan to adapt the ComUE status to enhance operational agility and subsidiarity. By then a new version of internal rules and regulations will be ready, optimizing operational efficiency versus community oversight, which must be discussed in parallel with the new status.

The next site agreement with the MENESR will be elaborated in 2019 and signed in July 2020. By this date, the functional organization of the adapted ComUE will be fully operational and tested, the educational offer at Licence level will have been submitted for accreditation (start: Fall 2019), the Master, Doctorate and research strategies of both the ComUE and the institutions depending on the Ministry of Higher Education and Research will have been evaluated by HCERES, and the new educational offer at Master and Doctoral level will be about to be submitted for accreditation (start: Fall 2020). This moment thus appears as the best time to find an agreement between partners with the help of the French State on the legal status of the target university, that would start its operation with the new 2020‐2024 five‐year period. This target university will appear in international rankings.

With respect to the "Target University" and the major objectives that have not yet been achieved (see table in 1.4), what ‐ if applicable ‐ are the main milestones remaining to be crossed?

Main operational measures to be taken in 2016

Activate schools and departments as concrete places for strategic discussion. Their present role is described in article 10 of our bylaw. For the integration of existing institutions in the target university to be successful, the main organizational bodies (schools, departments…) of the university must demonstrate their ability to discuss and elaborate strategic proposals. To that end, those organizational bodies will be challenged on increasingly complex and large projects and perimeters.



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In particular, fulfil with the School of Engineering and Information Science and Technology (SoEIST) the commitments taken in the 2011 IDEX project, and which were the subject of a specific comment from the jury. This school is emblematic of the ambition of the project because it gathers all grandes écoles and universities, and because engineering curricula and research are emblematic of the ambition of our project and a key point to develop innovation and transfer to industry in the current socio‐economic environment of Université Paris‐Saclay.

This school will be:

the place to discuss the evolution of the educational offer in the field of engineering, both regarding Master diploma and diplômes d’ingénieurs. The operational management of diplômes d’ingénieurs will remain the delivering institution’s responsibility, but the overall offer will be discussed and presented within the School;

the place of operational management for all Master curricula in the field of engineering, information science and technology;

the place to facilitate the mutualisation of operational aspects of training in the field of engineering. It will allow, for instance, grandes écoles to rationalize and optimize their curricula by sharing some general interest classes, establish bridges between diplomas, facilitate the creation of original curricula (e.g. medicine & engineering, etc.);

within the SoEIST, as well as within other schools, special care will be taken to foster the link with research, notably in order to define and implement educational programs. This will be achieved for example through frequent exchanges with relevant research departments.

The work groups foreshadowing the departments are working since beginning of 2015 on a thorough monitoring of the forces and weaknesses of Université Paris‐Saclay in research and transfer. The official launch of departments early 2016 will allow a formal evaluation of this work, to be translated into focused propositions of ambitious research projects. Among these projects, the integration in IDEX of the “Genomic and Post‐genomic for Health” Evry I‐Site project is already acted. Detailed conditions of this integration are being discussed through agreements to be concluded early 2016.

Departments are crucial for elaborating and developing a shared research strategy in large disciplinary fields at the site level, between the different national research organisms and higher education and research institutions. Their role in coordinating actions between research laboratories, and proposing ambitious initiatives (for example regarding infrastructures) will be complemented by the university and IDEX programs focused on interdisciplinarity and creating bridges between departments. Departments will also contribute to the dialog with the schools in order to strengthen the link between research and education. The strategic and coordination work within the departments will facilitate a more collective vision of the organisation of research at the site level. Following the examples of the “Institut de Biologie Intégrative de la Cellule” (I2BC) or the “Institute of Plant Sciences” (IPS2), increased collaboration between research staff will foster the creation of new laboratories corresponding to the dynamics of knowledge and innovation production and education rather than to institutional borders. Université Paris‐Saclay will support such a progressive, step‐by‐step transition, which will pave the



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way to a better operational integration of research based on a voluntary action of its members as well as a better synergy between research and education.

More details and measures will be described in Section 3 or Appendix A and B.

Nature of commitment Description of the indicator Target Date of

achievement

Finalize the proposition of a

global research strategy

currently being discussed from

the initial propositions of the

departments.

Evaluate the structuring and

international impact of the IDEX

project of the probationary

period, including LABEX, and list

a next series of priorities for

2016‐2020: extended or new

trans‐institution projects, new

interdisciplinary institutes,

emerging directions, etc.

White book with clear

propositions for

funding new priorities

with IDEX funding,

including the future of

LIDEX projects, as soon

as September 2016

30/09/2016

The school of Engineering and

Information Science and

Technology has completed its

evolution strategy, along the

lines recalled above, and in

agreement with 2011

commitments

Clear propositions to benefit

from synergies between

training courses between

“grandes écoles” diplomas, and

“grandes écoles” with

university diplomas at Master

and Licence level.

White book issued on

the Engineering

sciences, training and

research, in association

with the research

departments of this

domain

01/01/2017

First comprehensive

framework agreement signed

between UPSaclay and a major

company

See Part 3 : Innovation and

transfer

Signature of the

agreement 01/01/2017

Opening of an International

Welcome Office of UPSaclay

An agreement is found between

members to mutualise forces

on this crucial subject for

attractiveness of UPSaclay

Vote of a proposition

by UPSaclay Board 01/01/2017

A new legal status for the

ComUE

It will in particular enhance

operational agility through a

more comprehensive and legal

use of subsidiarity within the

ComUE

Submission to member

institution for vote by

their Boards

01/06/2017



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A new set of internal rules and

regulations for the ComUE

Accompanying the new legal

status about subsidiarity, and

optimizing operational

efficiency versus community

oversight.

Submitted to the

councils of the ComUE

for vote

01/06/2017

The FCS Campus Paris‐Saclay

has been transformed into a

UPSaclay foundation fully

oriented towards fund raising

Negotiating with French state a

new status of foundation

Submission to the FCS

Board and Assembly

for vote

01/06/2017

Mid term review of site

agreement with the MENESR

Regular mid term review about

the advancement of the site

agreement

Oral review 30/11/2017

Comprehensive plan for the

undergraduate training level

(Licence, IUT) in Université

Paris‐Saclay submitted for

accreditation from the

MENESR

Report submitted in

time 31/10/2018

Evaluation report on UPSaclay

Doctoral schools submitted to

HCERES for evaluation, with

propositions for evolution

Report submitted in time

Evaluation report from HCERES

for each doctoral school

100%

Positive for 90% of the

doctoral schools

31/10/2018

Spring 2019

First upgrade of the global

research strategy

The upgrade will be base on the

evaluation of the previous

period, and will consider both

the future of the UPSaclay

LABEX and the next HCERES

evaluation of research units.

White book with clear

propositions for

funding new priorities

with IDEX funding,

31/10/2018

Review on the operation

efficiency of the schools &

departments

Objective : prepare the

scenarios to build the target

university

Internal report

submitted to the

UPSaclay Councils

31/12/2018



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Comprehensive plan for the

Master level training offer

submitted for accreditation

from the MENESR

Report submitted in

time

31/10/2019

Identification of a legal status

for the target university

Submission to member

institution for vote by

their Boards

01/06/2019

Start of the target university

Legal status voted by member

institutions boards, creation

decree published by the state

01/09/2020

International ranking of

Université Paris‐Saclay

Formal demand from

Université Paris‐Saclay 2021

What are the main difficulties to overcome in order to achieve this agenda?

These difficulties have been detailed in the 6 critical conditions for success above.

With which university (or universities) does the IDEX intend comparing itself to adjust its strategy and pursue its development trajectory?

Université Paris‐Saclay is often compared to Oxford and Cambridge because they are collegiate universities with highly autonomous Colleges that have kept a legal status as listed bodies. This comparison is however only partly valid because, (1) unlike the member institutions of Paris Saclay, the Colleges of Oxford and Cambridge cannot deliver diploma and do not have a research strategy; (2) the different members of Université Paris‐Saclay cannot all select their students; (3) the reputation of existing institutions is far greater than that of the University as a whole; (4) with over 60 000 students, Université Paris‐Saclay is far larger.

Rather than comparing ourselves to one specific institution, we have therefore tried to develop specific tools and to benchmark ourselves with a wide range of institutions.

From a research perspective, we have developed analytical dashboards to compare the impact and visibility of our research with that of other top 50 universities worldwide. This enables us to benchmark ourselves with our competitors in specific fields as well as at a lab or institutional level.

From an institutional perspective we have done a detailed benchmark of leading universities with a specific focus on six cases: Technische Universität München, Oxford University, University College London, University of California Berkeley, Cornell University and Toronto University (https://share.universite‐paris‐saclay.fr/index.php/s/O8WvQoOYt2ktOK8).

This has enabled us to study cases such as (1) institutions that combine different legal statuses like Cornell, which is both a federal land‐grant research university (with some Colleges belonging to SUNY and receiving public funding) and a private Ivy League



54

institution; (2) universities that integrate national research labs like CalTech with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab; (3) universities like UCL that have progressively merged with 15 other institutions over the last 20 years (the latest example being the Institute of Education in 2014); (4) large public universities like Toronto where Research and Graduate education is mostly concentrated on the downtown campus and the two satellite campuses of Scarborough and Mississauga are less selective and less research intensive.

Today the ComUE Université Paris‐Saclay remains more similar to federal structures such as University of London or University of California than to UC Berkeley or UCL. Our benchmark shows that, by clearly defining the missions of each entity and ensuring that they are not in direct competition, we can continue our process of integration without losing our diversity.



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3. OPTIONAL ASSESSMENT AND ANALYSIS

This section presents some of our key forthcoming actions that illustrate how we will serve students, staff and society, relying on and developing the existing assets of our members in order to reinforce UPSaclay.

RESEARCH Our efforts to attract high potential researchers through the “IDEX chairs” program will be continued, based on the understanding of our recent successes (3 chairs recruited in 2015). Besides this program, our past action was focused on two simultaneous approaches:

The promotion of ambitious, trans‐institution excellence projects LABEX (funded until 2019) and LIDEX (funded until 2016) and interdisciplinary Research Institutes.

The creation of 10 research departments under a Research supervising council, advising the UPSaclay governance on shared research strategy.

Two other models of trans‐institution excellence projects are being set up for 2016‐2017, with a goal to become UPSaclay joint units:

The Pascal Institute, currently under construction, will open in 2017, with the aim to or‐ganize two to six month high‐level programs in frontier topics with the participation of top levels scientists from around the world,

The “Maison des Sciences de l’Homme de Paris‐Saclay” (MSH), set up to promote UP‐Saclay interdisciplinary programs in social sciences and humanities, with the idea to en‐courage a culture of quantitative data and an orientation toward science and technology studies, and to open these activities to the international community.

All these projects represent an important potential for developing the attractiveness and research performance of UPSaclay and many require long‐term support and investment. It is essential to take fair decisions about their future development, and to ensure their sustaina‐bility beyond the initial seed funding by IDEX:

In 2016, we will decide on the continuation of LIDEX projects, and on the launch of Pascal Institute and MSH. In the same round we will fund new projects emerging from the on‐going brainstorming organized within research departments, of which preliminary prop‐ositions are sketched in Appendix B;

In 2019, we will decide on the continuation of LABEX projects, within a general review of all excellence projects.

For these decisions we will seek support from the UPSaclay “Strategic council for Science and Innovation”, soon to be created as a part of UPSaclay governance (cf Part 1.3 above). Fund raising will be developed to ensure sustainability (see below in this Part).

TRAINING Postgraduate (Master – PhD)

One of the main success stories of our IDEX has been the restructuration of all existing Mas‐ters and PhD, enabling a comprehensive offer to be accredited by Université Paris‐Saclay (see §1.5.3 and Appendix B). Over the next couple of years we will continue the process and:

Finalise the restructuration of our information systems at the level of UPSaclay;



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Continue to rationalise our offer in order to ensure that it is more suited to socio‐economic needs, and create an Observatory of Student Success to better track the career paths of our graduates;

Generalise existing best practices in pedagogy and develop new digital tools both for teaching and for improving professional perspectives;

Set up a quality monitoring and management system. To be fully competitive, our next priority will be to increase the flow of excellent students taking a PhD. For that goal we will develop ambitious “PhD track” Master programs to at‐tract the most promising students, both from our own undergraduate courses and from oth‐er universities, notably abroad. Along this line we also want to build bridges between differ‐ent programs such as Engineering and Medicine or Chemistry and Pharmacy, to form the future leaders in biomedical research (see Appendix B).

Undergraduate

Building a successful undergraduate cycle is a challenge that Université Paris‐Saclay must tackle in order to become a world‐class university. So far only small‐scale operations have concerned the undergraduate level. Our calls for pro‐jects on “Educational Initiatives” and “Student outreaching mobility” served to involve both staff and undergraduate students, and helped promote interesting educational innovations and internationalisation of the curricula. The accreditation UPSaclay obtained for the Licence in “Sciences and Technology” of the IDEFI project “Institut Villebon Georges Charpak” ena‐bles us to train a limited number of selected students from underprivileged backgrounds, and develop new educational approaches that we work to disseminate. We will now launch a large scale brainstorming effort to transform the undergraduate cycle, like we did for the Master (cf Appendix B). This process will build upon the current character‐istics and diversity of our system: selection of students by the “grandes écoles” through competitive exams, and openness of the first year of the university undergraduate cycle to all students holding a Baccalauréat degree. Without anticipating on propositions that are still to be formulated, we believe that our action will rely notably on two instruments:

1. a large system of curricula and career guidance for students, that enables us to max‐imise student success;

2. the creation of competitive undergraduate cycles involving not only universities but, for some of them, universities and “grandes écoles” together.

Université Paris‐Saclay will apply for accreditation for these undergraduate cycles, thus de‐livering all three international university degrees: Bachelor, Master and PhD.

INNOVATION – RELATIONSHIP WITH INDUSTRY Thanks to the probationary phase we were able to set up a complete chain of tools to sup‐port innovation, from awareness of researchers and students to seed funding for start‐ups (cf §1.5.4). Our first goal for the next IDEX period is to optimize this system, to improve its efficiency, and to use it as a basis for visibility and attractiveness at the international level. This strategy will be supported by the development of innovations and start‐ups around structuring projects, called FLAGSHIPS. They will target synergies between research pro‐grams launched within the IDEX and industrial roadmaps of international companies. The “Open Lab Paris‐Saclay” with PSA Peugeot Citroën is a first example of such an initiative. It



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will be built around “mobility of the future” a major FLAGSHIP of Université Paris‐Saclay and a broad strategic topic for PSA. This company has developed since 2010 a series of scientific partnerships with several members of UPSaclay, including three Open Labs and five chairs. For the period 2016‐2020, an objective of PSA is to strengthen these partnerships through a framework agreement with UPSaclay focusing on three priorities: Information, Energy and Manufacturing. The cross‐sector approach offered by the actors of UPSaclay is a unique as‐set, and the relations with other industrial actors of the site (Safran Tech, Thales etc.) which are not direct competitors of PSA, is a great facilitator of open innovation. Furthermore, the future City Campus offers all the technological ingredients coupled to a unique societal di‐mension, thus ensuring a high potential for a living lab (See Appendix A). In parallel, to enhance the creation of start‐ups, we will launch the “Connected Open Paris Saclay” project: this program dedicated to students’ entrepreneurship is one of the main projects of our roadmap. Our objectives for the next 5 years are: a) to reach our 5,500 M2 graduate students and 10,000 academic staff through awareness and acculturation actions; b) to mentor project teams across the Paris‐Saclay Campus; c) to improve the accessibility of innovative entrepreneurship training focused on the “learning by doing” to Master and PhD students; d) to gather a large community of mentors and teachers, students, employees and entrepreneurs, as well as educational (MOOC, SPOC, active learning), financial (IDEX pre‐ maturation call ...), and material resources (fablabs, technology platforms ). Finally we plan to create a “Paris‐Saclay Design Center” as a platform hosting projects of innovation, training and events (exhibitions, conferences, master classes...). Public laborato‐ries, businesses or institutions will sponsor innovation projects that will mobilize multidisci‐plinary teams of Master or PhD students, supervised by teachers, researchers and designers. Cross‐sector training will be proposed covering topics such as: design drive innovation, de‐sign thinking, design tech, user experience design, sustainable design or design services.

INTERNATIONAL The late creation of Université Paris‐Saclay delayed the development of strong, direct inter‐national agreements. The next period will therefore focus on this, in full synergy with mem‐ber institutions, while extending successful actions of the probationary period: H2020 outreach

Successful incentive actions and support to ERC candidates will be continued. One new objective is to strongly increase the number of candidates in fields such as Life Science and Social Sciences were the application ratio remains relatively low consid‐ering the potential of Université Paris‐Saclay’ research in these domains.

Concerning societal challenges, incentives will be devoted to stimulate the emer‐gence of ambitious interdisciplinary projects that will contribute to strengthen the in‐ternational visibility and leadership of Université Paris‐Saclay.

Building on our experience with ERC grants, we plan to progressively develop a Paris‐Saclay “Europe Desk”, to coordinate and eventually pool partners’ resources to strengthen support for applications to H2020 grants, starting with ITN or Co‐fund.

International attractiveness for students and academics

We will continue to attract selected Master students with grants. In past years the level of the selected students rose while their number and the ratio M1/M2 more than doubled. These trends will be enhanced and we will set up in parallel a PhD



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track to attract and retain the best international students.

Our experience with international Master and PhD students or candidates to IDEX chairs demonstrated the urgent need of an International Welcome Office, to support newcomers, from students to faculty members: this is a priority of the years to come.

International outreach

The fact that Université Paris‐Saclay delivers Master and Doctorate degrees opens new opportunities for international collaborations. One recent example of such a de‐velopment is the MoU with Singapore universities NTU and NUS concluded last May. More generally, the first joint Master and PhD agreements are being signed.

To increase the visibility of Université Paris‐Saclay among the most renowned inter‐national research intensive universities, we will develop as a first step our participa‐tion to influential networks such as LERU (League of European Research Universities), in which UPSud has already started to advertise our projects.

International actions in both education and research will rely on the many Interna‐tional Associated laboratories or mirror units of International Joint units of the CNRS connected to UPSaclay, in order to facilitate the development of strong institutional links with prestigious foreign host universities.

COMMUNICATION The first IDEX period enabled us to define our brand attributes (logo, endorsement, common tools) and to implement a complete communication platform (print, web, social media etc.). Our future efforts will focus on three axes: Develop international communication:

Complete annual communication plan targeting masters and PhD candidates.

Increasing the international press relations effort connected with our international partnerships policy.

Wide dissemination of a toolbox for our students, researchers and economics am‐bassadors.

Enhance visibility of our major initiatives:

Social promotion of a new web series targeting young entrepreneurs (first season planned in April).

Prestigious events for Masters and PhD induction days and graduation ceremonies.

Participation and attendance to international scientific conferences with a travelling corporate exhibition.

A corporate UPSaclay magazine with our scientific and innovation jewels Intensify Université Paris‐Saclay's brand policy included in the brand founding mem‐

bers’ policy:

Acquiring advocates of Université Paris‐Saclay brand, inside our founding members. Top management, as well as academic staff are key. A “talking points and fact sheet” book is being written with all communications departments.

Development of Corporate branding by marketing various services under the name of UPSaclay: for example promotion of academic staff in pure player media, knowledge outreach’s platform, Research and Innovation virtual showroom.



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CAMPUS LIFE AND DIGITAL STRATEGY While ambitious developments are programmed around scientific projects and housing dis‐tricts to foster dialogue between science and society, most of our campus is currently a build‐ing site and most students still identify with their existing institution (see Appendix A). As a result, we are prioritizing two types of actions: 1) developing shared facilities across the campus (libraries, sport and cultural infrastructures, restaurants, etc.); 2) launching campus‐wide initiatives on key topics. In July 2016 we will launch a master plan to improve campus life quality and social promotion in the Université Paris‐Saclay that will integrate all actions that develop our community and create an open and inclusive environment. The IDEX funding is of particular importance in this sense, since it supports student projects that reinforce the Université Paris‐Saclay identity and facilitate the relationship between the different institutions. A common digital strategy is another key issue to promote efficiency, strengthen the com‐mon identity and enhance mobility throughout the campus and the member institutions. In September 2016 we will implement three main axes: 1. Build a digital broadband network. As part of the Digital Campus strategy, and in re‐

sponse to the request of the new institutions that will join the campus, we are continu‐ing a major upgrade of the campus digital network infrastructure.

2. Define a master plan for the development of shared digital services for campus‐wide administrative systems. It will align resources and investments with the University’s mis‐sions and goals.

3. Propose a master plan for e‐learning. We will enhance the creation and discovery of knowledge and content through digital means and improve the use and exploitation of digital technologies in teaching and research. Access to the University’s research outputs and data will be open to all and access to collections will be improved through a program of digitisation.

Finally, the “Diagonale Paris‐Saclay” will develop the interactions between scientists, stu‐dents, inhabitants, artists, and businesses and associations. After a first stage dedicated to local actors, between 2016 and 2020 we intend to support new projects related to the city and in partnership with major cultural structures of the area or with local organisations.

FUND RAISING Increasing the total budget and the sources of revenue of UPSaclay is one of the 6 conditions of success of our project (see §2). One instrument to reach this objective will be the trans‐formation, by the end of 2016, of the FCS into a new foundation fully oriented towards fund raising. In complementarity with existing IDEX member foundations, it will support collective projects such as our ambitious restructuring of the Licence degrees within UPSaclay, or trans‐institutions projects such as the Pascal Institute or the MSH. A specific Board will be put in place, regrouping mainly external members carefully selected at national and interna‐tional level from all sectors of society.



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4. INDICATORS

A file describing the indicators specific to IDEX Paris‐Saclay has been downloaded on the PIA web site.

Documents

IDEX Paris Saclay IDEX PIA1 END OF PROBATIONARY · PDF fileidex pia1 idex paris‐saclay end of probationary period evaluation report 4 table of contents summary 5 1. achievements