Don’t talk to them about the IDEX anymore… 18 months after the resounding failure that shook the regional higher education ecosystem, following the refusal of the board of directors of the Université stéphanoise Jean Monnet to continue the adventure , the actors from Lyon definitely want to turn the page on this painful episode.
But the idea of a recomposition of the local system is far from being abandoned. Lyon 1 and Lyon 2 are thus actively working on their merger.
A landscape that is too fragmented?
A whole new landscape of higher education in Lyon is thus taking shape. An essential recomposition in the eyes of Frédéric Fleury, president of Lyon 1 (47,000 students), who was already one of the major locomotives of the Idex project.
“Our territory has a large number of high-quality university research centres, our students are very well trained by high-level teacher-researchers and yet the Lyon site is not recognized at its fair value. We lack visibility, in particularly internationally. Why? Because our universities are too fragmented”.
Lyon has four fairly specialized universities: the University Claude Bernard Lyon Lyon 1, the University Lumière Lyon 2, the University Jean Moulin Lyon 3 and the Catholic University of Lyon (Ucly).
“This Lyon model that emerged in the 1970s is no longer relevant today. It no longer meets the requirements of today and tomorrow“completes Nathalie Dompnier, president of Lyon 2 since 2016 and whose mandate was renewed last year.
“Today, the major research partners, internationally in particular, want major multidisciplinary universities as interlocutors”.
Towards the creation of an experimental public institution
To remedy this problem, increase their attractiveness in particular to foreign students, develop more ambitious research programs, Lyon 1 and Lyon 2 are therefore embarking on the path of merger.
This should be done within an experimental public establishment integrating the CPE Lyon engineering school, already attached to Lyon 1.
CPE Lyon would not merge, but would retain its legal personality as authorized by the status of an experimental public establishment (EPE), the name of which has not yet been recorded.
This new group would weigh 75,000 students, a hundred research structures and 6,400 employees (teacher-researchers and administrative/technical staff). Four poles are envisaged: health/medicine, sciences, engineering, human and social sciences. They would be supplemented by graduate schools and thematic institutes making it possible to build cross-functionality between the hard sciences and the human sciences.
On the planning side, operations could move forward quickly since the horizon of this merger is hoped for by the two presidents for 2024.
A first prefiguring model should be presented in the fall and the final statutes drafted in 2023. In this plan, a major step has just been validated: on April 22 and 26, the boards of directors of the two establishments gave a mandate , by an overwhelming majority, to their respective presidents to move forward on this path of fusion.
After the merger, the merger with other establishments could be studied.
Shape-Med@Lyon, a project presented at PIA4
While waiting for the merger, the two institutions are working together on a project presented to the PIA4 Excellencies jury last February. The answer is expected at the end of May.
Baptized Shape-Med@Lyon (for Structuring one Health Approach for Personnalized Medicine in Lyon), this dossier is in fact a new version of the Lynx project presented in 2021 by 18 Lyon establishments federated behind Lyon 1 (Lyon 2, Lyon 3, CPE Lyon , VetAgro Sup, Insa Lyon, Centrale Lyon, Mines Saint-Etienne, the ENTPE, the civil hospices of Lyon, the Léon Bérard centre, the CH Le Vinatier, the CIRC, the CNRS, the Inserm, the INRAE, the ‘INRIA and IFPEN) and which was ultimately not selected by the jury.
Lynx was targeting funding of 140 million euros to finance scientific work around four themes: “from personalized health to global health”, “climate and environmental change”, “Matter, materials and clean industry”, and “Transformation companies”. “We were made to understand that Lynx was oversized in relation to this call for projects. The envelopes requested were too large”rapporte Nathalie Dompnier.
The ax fell last November. Immediately, the project was revised with lower ambitions and a focus on health.
The other areas that were to be addressed within the framework of Lynx are currently the subject of studies to structure other common actions. Shape-Med@Lyon thus federates Lyon1, Lyon 2, the HCL, the Léon Bérard center, the Vinatier, VétAgro Sup, CPE Lyon, Inserm, CNRS, INRAé, Inria, as well as the international research center on cancer (WHO).
An envelope of “only” 35 million euros requested
“We are part of a global, interdisciplinary approach, making it possible to understand how the social and physical environment of individuals interacts with their state of health. Beyond the care and vaccines approach, the Covid, for example, has clearly shown how it was crucial to understand the diffusion, the aggravating social factors, how the health messages were perceived. Today, in health, it is essential to question the issues differently”says Frédéric Fleury. “We must decompartmentalize”.
On the program of Shape-Med@Lyon: an envelope of “only” 35 million euros requested. “We have chosen four themes: cancer, health and territory, neurosciences, infectious and emerging diseases”specifies the president of the University Claude Bernard.
The project aims to develop a transdisciplinary approach, therefore in health, with the objective of promoting mobility between companies and the academic world, accelerating the digital transformation of health research and setting up training for future health professions.
“The project was designed as a demonstrator of renewed approaches to major societal issues”.
It is part of a more global project, Lyon Health Hub 2030, which aims to consolidate Lyon’s position as a major center for health research, training and innovation. To bring out this stronghold, several initiatives are on the program: creation of the Health Innovation Factory, creation of the Health Research House, etc.
Elsewhere too, we are recovering from the IDEX
Lyon 1 and Lyon 2 are not the only ones working on post-Idex.
In parallel with Shape-Med@Lyon, a second project was presented to the PIA4 jury. Project called Tools+ and coordinated by the Ecole Normale Supérieure. It brings together Sciences Po Lyon, Lyon 3, Centrale Lyon, the Ecole des Mines de Saint-Etienne, VetAgroSup, the National Conservatory of Music and Dance of Lyon, the CNRS, lnria, Inrae, Inserm and IFPEN.
It is therefore broader than the first “Tools” project presented during the first wave of the PIA4 call for Excellence projects and which did not include the Ecole des Mines de Saint-Etienne in particular. Tools+ is requesting funding of approximately 25 million euros to lead towards greater “openness”: diversity of profiles, multidisciplinarity and internationality.
As for the Jean Monnet University, in Saint-Etienne, the new governance led by Florent Pigeon presented a new development plan, estimated at 14.3 million euros (and supported to the tune of 2.1 million euros by Saint-Etienne Métropole). It aims for better recognition of the University at the national and international level thanks to a reinforcement in terms of research in health/human sciences and social sciences/engineering. It must also “transform the university” by creating new courses (such as the school of economics or schools specializing in sports health performance or photonics). International collaborations must also be developed.
Within three years, the entire Lyon-Stéphanois higher education ecosystem should therefore take on a completely different appearance.
