After the controversies of the beginning of the year, the university environment of Toulouse undergoes new upheavals. A few days before the communication of the winners of the AAP ExcellenceS and its 800 million euros, new opposition weakens the project of a “single” University of Toulouse and by extension the Tiris file for the AAP ExcellenceS.
The latest echoes from Paris are rather good. The Toulouse Initiative for Research Impact on Society (Tiris) project won the winners’ section of theAAP ExcellenceSa label endowed with a total amount of 800 million euros to support higher education and research establishments carrying out an ambitious transformation project. Despite the good news, for the past fortnight, some members of the Toulouse university world have lost their smiles.
The creation of a “single” Toulouse university site (Experimental Committee – University of Toulouse), bringing together all of Toulouse’s establishments under a single “brand” in order to exist in international rankings such as Shanghai but especially in order to obtain the AAP ExcellenceS, would be in danger.
One of the future components of the University of Toulouse, the current University Toulouse 1 Capitole, would have simply decided to take off on its side. You have to go back six months to understand what is happening.
At the beginning of 2002, a thunderclap within UT1. The Ministry of Higher Education and Research decides unilaterally to offer one of the departments of the oldest Toulouse university, the famous Toulouse School Of Economics (TSE) of the Nobel Prize in Economics, Jean Tirole, its autonomy . To do”skip the pill“Toulouse 1 Capitole University obtains the status of an experimental public establishment (EPE) accompanied by additional human and financial resources.
Since then, the presidency of UT1 also seems to go it alone. The drafting of the future statutes of this EPE are already drafted. But several points provoke the anger of the project teams from the University of Toulouse (UT). The “UT” mark is never mentioned there. Worse ! LThe EPE of Toulouse 1 Capitole is preparing its doctorate, its signature of scientific publications and its appearance in its own name in international rankings. In short, Toulouse 1 Capitole University is outside and in competition with the single Toulouse establishment project.
Enough to calling into question the University of Toulouse project and, in a domino effect, obtaining the AAP ExcellenceS label for the Tiris project. “If the University of Toulouse falls (with the departure of the University Toulouse 1 Capitole), the deployment of Tiris risks being blocked by the Ministry of Higher Education and Research” worries an observer.
Questioned, the players in these cases refuse to address the issues that annoy them. Everything would be fine in the best of worlds. “We are currently working on the convergence of the statutes, so that the Tiris project and the University of Toulouse which constitutes the foundation likely to contribute to the excellence of our establishments and thus contribute to the visibility of the Toulouse site” comments Philippe Raimbault, president of the federal university and main promoter of the Toulouse single site project.
For his part of the presidency of Toulouse 1 Capitole University, he believes that “everyone knows, a great research university does not fall to anyone and cannot be decreed. It is up to all of us, Toulouse players in higher education and research, to ensure that our research achieves excellence. With Toulouse Capitole Université, we are creating new synergies that will bring Toulouse’s academic excellence to the international level.
This project is not incompatible with that of TIRIS or UT, as we have always pointed out. Of course, an articulation of our statutes is necessary, and we are working on it in good understanding with the other university presidents and the president of the federal university..”
Finally, the Ministry of Higher Education tersely assures us that “the Toulouse site project is progressing in a constructive dynamic, and the ministry closely supports the site in order to allow it to be recognized.“
According to our information, the ministry does not only “to accompanyr” the Toulouse site. He met the pressure on Hugues Kenfack a few days before the announcement of the AAP ExcellenceS. Even if he does not hesitate to appear on social networks alongside Minister Sylvie Retailleau, the Toulouse jurist would have been “called to order“by the latter during an interview on Tuesday, June 28.
Out of the question, that Toulouse relaunch again the failure and the humiliation of the loss of the Idex (investment programs of the French State whose purpose is to create in France multidisciplinary sets of higher education and world-class research.) as in 2018.