Engineering schools facing the challenge of digital transition: the case of Polytech

[The conversation] - Published on October 2, 2017 in Faculties, Schools, and Institutes, Educational Innovation, Science and Society

On the eve of the Polytech network conference in Lyon on October 3 and 4, 2017, let's take stock of the specific features, strengths, and challenges of this young network of 14 university engineering schools.
Marc Bidan, University of Nantes; Alexandre Cabagnols, Clermont Auvergne University and Roxana Ologeanu-Taddei, University of Montpellier

The recent integration of Polytech Nancy into the network, the advent of associate school status, the creation of the "Fondation Partenariale Polytech" and the arrival of the Millennial generation are symbolic events that must be deciphered and confronted with the digital transition.
It should be noted that all three of us are Professors the Humanities & Social Sciences departments at the schools in Clermont-Ferrand, Montpellier, and Nantes.

The origins of the Polytech network

This network was created in the early 2000s with the emergence of various local university engineering schools resulting from the consolidation of engineering schools (Nantes (= Ireste + Isitem + Esa Igelec) in 2000, Marseille in 2001, Orléans (=Esem + Espeo) and Tours in 2002, Grenoble in 2003, Clermont (=CUST) in 2006, etc.).
These pioneering schools aimed to align themselves with French public universities and improve their national and international visibility.
To date, the results speak for themselves. They make this network, along with the IAE network created in 1955 for university management schools, a great success. This success story is based on an original partnership involving universities, the Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation (MESRI), the Conference of Directors of French Engineering Schools (CDEFI) and the Commission des Titres d'Ingénieurs (CTI).

Already 70,000 engineering graduates

Since February¹, 2017, the Polytech network has comprised 14 public schools under the authority of the MESRI (Ministry of Higher Education, Research, and Innovation) that award engineering degrees recognized by the CTI (Commission d'Agrément des Instituts de Formation des Ingénieurs). It also includes two associated schools (ISTIA Angers and ENSIM Le Mans) which "aim to share the same admission process as the member schools of the Polytech network for high school graduates (Geipi Polytech competitive exam) and for students in preparatory classes for the grandes écoles (Polytech competitive exam)." It offers a dozen areas of training (computer science, civil engineering, thermal energy, mechanics, biomedical engineering, mathematical engineering and modeling, materials, etc.).
The network has already graduated more than 70,000 engineers who are currently working, and graduates approximately 3,000 each year, making it the largest in France in terms of graduation numbers. It draws on the expertise of some 1,300 Professors , dozens of research laboratories, hundreds of visiting professors, and thousands of specialists working in all professional sectors who contribute on an ad hoc basis (lectures, tutorials, practicals, projects, seminars, workshops, serious games, etc.).

The strength of joint competitive examinations and atypical recruitment methods

The 14 member schools of the network—as well as around 15 other non-member engineering schools—recruit their engineering students at the high school diploma level through a joint competitive exam called Geipi Polytech, which each year in May attracts around 16,000 candidates for approximately 3,000 places offered at the 30 or so schools participating in this important post-high school exam.
Similarly, the schools in the network recruit at the bac +2 level via the e3a competitive entrance exam. This exam is common to many engineering schools and is open to students in scientific preparatory classes.
Ultimately, engineering graduates from the Polytech network come from three main backgrounds, and mixing and exchanges between them are encouraged: 1/3 PEIP, 1/3 CPGE, and 1/3 DUT.
Finally, it should be noted that the schools in the network also recruit their engineering students through many other channels, based on qualifications, applications, or academic background. A prime example is the original offer made to students who passed but failed at the end of their first year of medical school (PACES) as part of the AVOSSTI project, which was selected by the IDEFI project jury in 2012. Volunteers who have failed and are eligible can then enter directly into the second year of the integrated PeiP cycle (preparation for Polytech engineering schools) at one of the schools in the network. A second example is the opportunity offered to certain STI2D baccalaureate holders after preparatory classes at an IUT. A third and final example is the 3+1+2 pathway for students at Shanghai Maritime University.

The Polytech ecosystem

In addition to the 14 member schools of the network, this ecosystem includes two associate schools, the CTI, which awards engineering degrees and oversees the essential accreditations required to award engineering degrees; the CDEFI (Conference of Directors of French Engineering Schools); the MESRI, which oversees the recruitment and careers of Professors (mainly temporary teaching and research assistants—doctoral students—lecturers, and university professors); Universities (and the CPU), which are the institutional "parent organizations" of which the Polytech schools are a part; research laboratories, which may of course bring together actors from universities, scientific research centers (CNRS, Inserm, INRIA, IRD, INED, IFSTTAR, etc.) and other grandes écoles (École Centrale, École Polytechnique, INSA, Institut Mines-Telecom, etc.); the federation of alumni (Polytech Alumni) and that of current students; the international experiences of network members (Polytech Abroad); and finally, the recent "Fondation Partenariale Polytech."
The originality of this young ecosystem—currently limited to mainland France—lies in the interoperability and consistency of the network's 14 members. It is also based on joint management by the network coordinator and his team and, in our view, on a triptych of shared values centered on the concepts of ambition, anchoring, and benevolence.

The three challenges of mass, high-quality graduation

The network faces three complex and intertwined challenges, consistent with what the network has become after 17 years of existence.

1. Combine mass production with quality

The first is that of a degree program that must continue to be both large-scale (in terms of volume) and high-quality (in terms of teaching and research). This network has become the de facto leading engineering school in France, with an annual "output" of around one in ten engineers. Even though the number of engineers trained in France remains largely insufficient to meet the high demand and the 10,000 retirements each year (the Conference of Directors of French Engineering Schools would like to reach 50,000 graduates in five years, thus greatly exceeding the 35,000 graduates of today), the strength of this network, with its twelve specializations and 70,000 active engineers, clearly makes it one of the most important direct contributors to national competitiveness. The project of reindustrializing France —and Europe—needs engineers!
Thus, the Polytech network must remain in control of the selection and recruitment process. However, throughout this training process, including—and especially—during the two years of integrated preparatory classes, the network must (1) promote rather than penalize, (2) guide and support, and (3) be open to atypical profiles and talents. In this respect, it differs from the IAE network, which is faced with the complexity of an uncontrolled selection process and the strong appeal of management studies!

2. govern globally and act locally

The second challenge is that of governance. It must continue to be both global and local. It will need to remain global with active and visible coordination of the network, a one-stop shop for partners—public or private, national or international—powerful shared tools such as the e-planet educational platform or the entrance exam, jointly deployed educational and research projects, shared communication and visibility, support for the rise of our strong arm, Polytech Alumni, and our calling cards, the BDE and BDS, etc.
It will also need to think locally, with the recruitment of Professors with major local priorities, research efforts consistent with competitiveness clusters, private partners, and other business and innovation ecosystems in the regions, creativity and originality in locally-driven educational innovations, and the continuation of specialties with strong regional roots, such as algae in GPB in Nantes-St Nazaire or the scanner-to-scalpel pathway in GM in Marseille. The challenge of governance must be considered at the network level and deployed at the local level, i.e., that of the 14 schools and sometimes even the specialties themselves.

3. Welcome Millennials and adapt to an inevitable digital transition

The third challenge is that of digital transition and transformation. It has surpassed that of the early 2010s on globalization, even though it takes up some of the avenues explored at that time (interdisciplinarity, research, networking, openness). However, it also requires educators to have a good understanding of the complexity and irreversibility of the phenomenon driven by the rapid platformization of economic activities (big data, algorithms, pricing, control, outsourcing, disintermediation, etc.) and by the functional/fictional coupling of the technologies that support it and which, in part, require a rethinking of the professionProfessor.

Rethinking how we welcome hyper-connected engineering students

This challenge also requires us to recontextualize the way we welcome generations of engineering students who are very different from their predecessors and, therefore, from their teachers and trainers. These generations, with their exotic and controversial names (Generation Y, Millennials, digital natives, YOLO, Generation Peter Pan, etc.), are characterized by numerous paradoxes. It is essential to adapt to them by focusing on listening and kindness in our teaching, the acquisition of skills (including 1) the ability to integrate into an organization and (2) the ability to take into account the industrial, economic, and professional issues discussed on page 7 of this CTI document) rather than strictly speaking knowledge (which quickly becomes obsolete), and by reinventing our assessment tools, which are still too exclusively based on grading from 0 to 20 and positioning relative to the arithmetic mean. For example, we should value their cognitive agility, their curiosity, their appetite for co-working and third places, and finally their hyper-connection, which is not just an "inability to concentrate for long periods of time," or their search for "beauty," "ethics," and "pleasure."
This hyper-connectivity is also in line with the emergence of a "hyper-industrial society," which is also undergoing profound changes due to the penetration of ICT at the very heart of productive activity (Pierre Veltz, La société hyper-industrielle, 2017: value chains, the internal organization of companies, strategies, and the place of salaried workers are thus being rethought.
This digital transition is not only technological but also "societal." Its deployment is ongoing and its outcome is still uncertain. This poses a challenge for support, which must integrate into training the non-scientific and non-technical dimensions that are the organizational, economic, legal, societal, environmental, and managerial aspects specific to the emerging digital ecosystems in which our future engineers will evolve and—hopefully—thrive.

Revisiting the tubular approach to engineering education

The idea is to offer bridges and other pathways to other types of skills. For example, the recent partnership signed with the IAE network is a good avenue to explore and promote in order to give our students some additional tools. The aim is to offer them the opportunity to acquire managerial and entrepreneurial skills so that they can better open certain doors that will present themselves throughout their future careers, which will inevitably require "dual skills."
This agreement is consistent with the numerous local agreements that have existed since the 2010s between the IAE and Polytech components of certain universities to develop new profiles. This challenge of dual skills with dual entry points (engineer-manager/manager-engineer) is also linked to that of lifelong learning and the future and massive challenge of welcoming learners to a finally revisited vocational training program.

Two avenues for addressing these challenges

We propose to strengthen what is currently one of the network's strengths, namely exchanges between its 14 schools, and to focus on the pursuit of relevance.

1. Strengthen exchanges, mobility, and cross-disciplinary collaboration

Paradoxically, the network's youth is also an asset in terms of operational flexibility and adaptability, both to the digital transition and to the arrival of new generations of engineering students who are quite different in substance and form from those who preceded them.
With regard to students, schools must be able to increase short- and medium-term mobility within the network, even though it is already relatively high at the end of the two preparatory years and during the fifth year. With regard to teachers and staff, the network must also be able to improve their mobility. It must also continue to develop cross-disciplinary services, centers, or departments—in addition to those focused on languages, which help students achieve a TOEIC score of 785 —that are oriented toward the humanities (economics, management, law, sociology, etc.), well-structured, and offer a significant volume of courses (up to 20% of the total volume).
These cross-disciplinary entities are useful, flexible, unifying, and welcome, particularly among employers, according tofeedback from post-graduation surveys. They can also be an interesting meeting point for 3E (school/student/company) for the essential support ofapprenticeships and work-study programs.

2. In the rigor-relevance tandem, focus on relevance

Let's tackle one of the main and probably controversial challenges. Indeed, it is customary to base excellence in research and scientific training on a combination of a high level of rigor and a high degree of relevance.
In this regard, from the perspective of our respective humanities departments, it seems to us that rigor (e.g., toward a precise and reliable result?) has been prioritized for too long at the expense of relevance (i.e., toward a useful and appropriate result (... to the question asked)?). Therefore—faced with a world rich in questions, disruptions, interdisciplinarity, and algorithmic – We believe it is important to shift the focus back to the search for relevance.
The idea is to prioritize the acquisition of relevant skills. Those that will preserve (a little!) the white-collar workers facing big dataFirst, engineering students must learn to fully understand and define the question being asked, considering its impacts (even the most unlikely and counterintuitive ones) and its implications. They must then propose a reasonable and effective methodological approach (more efficient than effective) in order to contribute to a scientific and technical response that is acceptable, frugal, and useful.
Engineers confronted with a digital world that disrupts the verticality of knowledge must accept that they are no longer the ones "who know and can do everything" and become experts who know how to communicate. shamelessly when he no longer knows !
Marc Bidan, University professor in information systems management at Polytech Nantes, University of Nantes; Alexandre Cabagnols, Associate Professor of Economics and Management at Polytech Clermont-Ferrand, Clermont Auvergne University and Roxana Ologeanu-Taddei, Associate Professor authorized to supervise research in Management Sciences at Polytech Montpellier, University of Montpellier
The original version of this article was published on The Conversation.

Keywords: Diploma, Students, Training, Professional integration, High school students, Orientation