In Avignon, the innovative Villa Créative is preparing to live
Gone are the days of the fortress university where only an elite entered pulled on the shutter. With the democratization of higher education, the university has opened its doors to more and more diverse students. Under the impetus of several regulatory changes, it began to cooperate with external elements such as companies with which it shares innovations and go up some pulpits… Pu she researchers have ogot the right to engage in the entrepreneurial adventure without losing their status.
Asserting itself as an economic actor structuring the territories it occupies, the University also forges privileged relations with the public authorities. And the general public is no longer forced toe notheadmire that from afar, the University welcoming it more and more willingly thanks to an offer of animation qui gets richer over time.
Because everyone needs research to face the challenges and the complexity of the world. And because faced with this same complexity, the University can no longer think alone. It needs to feel the breath of civil society. Of sift his concerns. To have other angles of view, other expertise capable of refining one’s gaze.
Returning a historic building to the people of Avignon
It is precisely this porosity between civil society and the university that the Creative Villa wants to facilitate, a totem place that the University of Avignon wants to promote in one of its two areas of research and training: “Culture, heritage and digital society – the other axis concerning agrosciences.
” Originally, the University had a building adjoininghave the Anna Arendt campus: the Pasteur site », explains Anne-Lise Rosier, director of the Creative Villa. A building bourgeois of nineteenth century with gardens who, for a time, had hostede the faculty of sciences before finding itself fallow, cthis last one having joined the Henri Fabre campus outside the city.
“ As part of a State-Region plan contract, we have had 15 million euros to rehabilitate this 7,200 m² site. But we wanted it to be returned to the people of Avignon and not be reserved for students and researchers only. We therefore decided to make it a place where different audiences could meet, without forcing regulars to attend university.”. A way to show in the greatest name what are the missions of the University. What is its weight in the local economy. And what opportunities culture and creation allow the territory and humans.
Financial autonomy
IInnovative in substance, the Creative Villa is also innovative in form. ” We are the first university to benefit from the University Research Societies (SUR) system, which allows us to create an SAS to support the investment and operation of the building. “. In the capital of this SAS: the University which holds 48% of the shares, the State which holds 17% via the Banque des Territoires, but also a private partner with 35%: the Etic property company which manages around ten third parties -places in France and about twenty in the world. ” Etic accompanies us in the operation of the building “.
NOTe receiving no subsidies for its operation, the Creative Villa plans to generate profits in the short term – 120,000 euros per year from the second year, 150,000 euros after ten years – which will allow it to finance its projects. Profits made thanks to the provision of spaces from the Villa will welcome temporary and permanent residents, who, in addition to ensuring the economic sustainability of the place, will breathe life into it.
Among them, jewels of the local economy such as the School of New Images, the Festival d’Avignon, the Conservatoire of Arts and Crafts which will set up there – in a nearby annex – a chair specializing in the creative industry and culture. Anne-Lise Rosier also highlights the presence of large groups such as Orange or Airbus, and this one players facilitating the transfer of innovation to the market, such as Satt Sud Est. Because the ambition is to see be born projects that could, in the same place, be supported throughout their developmentdevelopment.
Preparing the creative industry of tomorrow
Projects that should help the world of culture to face the challenges that await it. ” This place will make it possible to think about the ecological transition essential in the process of creation and restitution of the works. For example, it is essential to decarbonize festivals, to think about how they are set up and how public travel is organized. With regard to heritage, one might wonder how to preserve it while promoting the development of renewable energies such as photovoltaics or wind power. This requires getting everyone around the table: elected officials, entrepreneurs, the public, researchers… “.
Phy is it in Avignon that such a project was able to see the light of day? ” I think there are several factors that explain it thinks Anne-Lise Rosier. ” The University of Avignon, which is a small university, a ladder that offers him perfect agility. Then, the project was very well received by the university community, which quickly understood the positive externalities that this generated for research and training. Finally, we have found a very good private partner who can support us thanks to his expertise. We were also very well advised in terms of engineering and brought about good support from the political powers “. Notably of the region South “ who supported us from day one, politically and financially “.
A lung of attractiveness for the territory
VSar in Anne-Lise Rosier’s opinion, the project will have positive deposits on the territory. ” It is a place that will radiate and will participate in strengthening the attractiveness ofin the Vaucluse“. The strength of the project being to emanate from a university. ” Training and research projects will benefit from the Creative Villa label, which will prove that they will benefit from the support of a university”, credit gauge. ” There are already Parisian production companies setting up in Avignon thanks to that “.
And while the project is still in the making, it is already beginning to try. The University of Avignon is already planning to open a Villa Naturalité dedicated to its second priority, which is agrosciences. And the Creative Villa team is regularly contacted by “ other universities, deputies, local authorities, owners of historical monuments who want to be inspired by our “. Proof according to Anne-Lise Rosier of a ” real need for places that eventually hybridize all the skills, whether they come from public or private actors “.
L’opening is expected current 2023. But already, the Creative Villa lives outside its walls thanks to a program which grows richer month by month. “ We welcome structures for conferences. And we’re going to call for an artist residency “. So that when cutting son ribbon, ” the pulse of the Creative Villa is already beating strong “.