Higher education: the official birth of the University of Toulouse which creates a student parliament
Created by decree last December, the University of Toulouse, which brings together all higher education establishments, became effective in January. Marc Renner is the provisional administrator pending elections at the end of March.
The University of Toulouse (UT) was born. The entity, which brings together all the higher education establishments of the Pink City and the departments of Midi-Pyrénées (ten university towns), has replaced the Federal University since January. A decree of December 9 formalizes its creation.
For the time being, it is a temporary administrator attached to the General Directorate for Higher Education and Professional Integration, Marc Renner, who is at the head of this transformation driven by the academic community in 2021.
“A great novelty”
The objective, in addition to “tightened” governance (39 members on the board of directors against 70 previously), is to increase the international visibility of the three Toulouse universities (Paul Sabatier, Capitole and Jean Jaurès), of the major schools and IUT (Enac, Isae-Supaero, Inu Champollion, IMT Mines, etc.) and research organizations (Cnes, CNRS, Inrae, Mété France, etc.). UT also wants to give voice to students who will have their “parliament”.
“This is the great novelty explained, Marc Renner. But everything is to be invented. The student parliament may be composed of fifty members and must be representative of all the establishments. It will be an advantage for students to be part of a University of Toulouse which has international visibility and which will be able to welcome good students from abroad. Toulouse already has very attractive schools at national level. This is particularly the case of Isae-Supaero which seeks to bring back the best students requested by aeronautics and space. Not all establishments have the same strategy. There are many nuggets in law, economics, humanities and social sciences, hard sciences…”
Integrate training centers
Why has the University of Toulouse adopted an experimental Comue status (community of universities and establishments)?
“This experimental status makes it possible in particular to integrate the training and research centers present in the Toulouse academy which do not improve the supervision of the Ministry of Higher Education and Research, but whose excellence plays a strong role to the visibility of the site on an international scale,” it says.
Finally, with regard to the governance of UT, we will have to wait for the elections which will take place on March 21, 22 and 23 to find out who will preside over the destiny of this new entity.