Engineering schools put to the test of the digital transition: the case of Polytech

On the eve of the Polytech network assizes 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 Millenials are symbolic events that need to be deciphered and confronted with the digital transition.
All three of us are lecturers in the Humanities and Social Sciences departments at the Clermont-Ferrand, Montpellier and Nantes schools.

The genesis of the Polytech network

This network was created in the early 2000s, with the emergence of a number of university engineering schools resulting from local groupings 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.).
The ambition of these pioneering schools was to become part of the French public university system, and to raise their national and international profile.
To date, the results speak for themselves. Together with the IAE network created in 1955 for university business schools, they make this network an outstanding success story. This success story is based on an original partnership involving the 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

As a result, since February^1, 2017, the Polytech network has included 14 public schools under the auspices of the MESRI, delivering engineering degrees recognized by the CTI. It also includes 2 associate schools (ISTIA Angers and ENSIM Le Mans) which are "intended to share the same admission mode as Polytech network member schools for baccalaureate holders (Geipi Polytech competitive entrance exam) and for students in preparatory classes for the grandes écoles (Polytech competitive entrance exam)". It offers a dozen fields 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 and graduates around 3,000 each year, making it the largest in France in terms of graduates. It draws on the expertise of some 1,300 permanent lecturers and researchers, dozens of research laboratories, hundreds of visiting professors and thousands of specialists in all professional sectors who contribute on an ad hoc basis (courses, td, tp, projects, seminars, workshops, serious games, etc.).

The strength of open competitions and atypical recruitment

The network's 14 member schools - as well as some fifteen non-member engineering schools - recruit their engineering students at baccalaureate level via the joint Geipi Polytech competitive entrance exam, which attracts some 16,000 applicants every May for around 3,000 places offered by the thirty or so schools taking part in this major post-baccalaureate competition.
The network's schools also recruit at bac +2 level via the e3a competitive entrance exam. This competition is common to many engineering schools, and is open to students of scientific preparatory classes.
All in all, Polytech network engineering graduates come from three main families, whose intermingling and exchanges should be 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 via a number of other routes, based on qualifications, portfolio or career path. A first example is the original offer for students who have passed the first year of medical school (PACES) as part of the AVOSSTI project, which was selected by the jury for the IDEFI call for projects in 2012. Voluntary and eligible "recus-collés" then enter the second year of the PeiP integrated cycle (preparation for Polytech engineering schools) at one of the network's schools. A second example: the opportunity offered to certain STI2D baccalaureate holders after a preparatory course at an IUT. A third and final example: the 3+1+2 program for students at Shanghai Maritime University.

The Polytech ecosystem

In addition to the network's 14 member schools and two associate schools, this ecosystem includes the CTI, which issues the title of engineer and oversees the essential authorizations to issue the title of engineer; the CDEFI (Conférence des directeurs des écoles françaises d'ingénieurs); the MESRI, which oversees the recruitment and careers of teacher-researchers (mainly temporary teaching and research associates -doctorants-, lecturers and university professors); the universities (and the CPU), which are the institutional "mother institutions" of which the Polytechs are components; the research laboratories, which can of course include players from the universities, scientific research centers (CNRS, Inserm, INRIA, IRD, INED, IFSTTAR...) and other grandes écoles (École Centrale, École Polytechnique, INSA, Institut Mines-Telecom, etc.).); the federation of former students (Polytech Alumni) and current students; the international experience of network members (Polytech Abroad) and, finally, the recently created "Fondation Partenariale Polytech".
The originality of this young ecosystem - for the moment exclusively metropolitan - lies in the interoperability and coherence of the 14 members of the network. It is also based on a common management structure led by the network coordinator and his team, and - in our view - on a triptych of shared values based on the notions of ambition, anchoring and benevolence.

The three challenges of mass, high-quality graduation

The network is facing three complex and interwoven challenges, in line with what it has become after 17 years of existence.

1. articulate massification and quality

The first is to ensure that the number of engineers graduating continues to be both massive (in terms of numbers) and of high quality (in terms of teaching and research). This network has become the de facto leading trainer of engineers in France, with the annual "production" of around one engineer in ten. Even if the number of engineers trained in France remains largely insufficient in the face of strong demand and 10,000 retirements each year (the Conférence des directeurs des écoles françaises d'ingénieurs would like to reach 50,000 graduates in five years' time, thus far exceeding the 35,000 graduates today), the strike force of this network, with its twelve specialties and 70,000 active engineers, clearly makes it one of the most important direct contributors to national competitiveness. The reindustrialization of France - and Europe - needs engineers!
The Polytech network must remain in control of selection and recruitment procedures. However, throughout the training process, including - or even especially - during the two years of integrated preparatory courses, the network must (1) promote rather than punish, (2) provide guidance and support, and (3) be open to atypical profiles and talents. In this, it differs from the IAE network, which has to contend with the complexities of an uncontrolled selection process and the strong appeal of business 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 network coordination, a one-stop shop for partners - public or private, national or international - powerful shared tools such as the e-planet teaching platform or the entrance exam, jointly deployed teaching and research projects, shared communication and visibility, support for the growing power of our armed wing, Polytech Alumni, and our business cards, the BDE and BDS, etc. It will also need to think locally, with the recruitment of teacher-researchers aligned with major local orientations, research efforts aligned with local needs, and the development of a local network.
It will also need to think locally, with recruitment of teaching and research staff aligned with major local orientations, research efforts consistent with competitive clusters, private partners and other local business and innovation ecosystems, the creativity and originality of locally-supported teaching innovations, and the perpetuation of specialties with strong local roots, such as algae in GPB in Nantes-St Nazaire or the scanner to scapel pathway in GM in Marseille. The challenge of governance needs to be considered at network level and deployed at local level, i.e. at the level of the 14 schools and sometimes even the specialties themselves.

3. welcome Millenials and adapt to the digital transition

The third challenge is that of digital transition and transformation. It has overtaken the challenge of the early 2010s on globalization, even if it takes up some of the avenues envisaged (interdisciplinarity, research, networking, openness). However, it also requires trainers to have a good understanding of the complexity and irreversibility of the phenomenon, driven by the rapid flattening of economic activities (big data, algorithms, pricing, control, outsourcing, disintermediation, etc.) and by the functional/fictional coupling of the technologies that support it, which in part requires us to rethink the profession of teacher-researcher.

Rethinking the way we welcome hyper-connected engineering students

This challenge also requires us to recontextualize the reception of 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(Y, Millenials, digital natives, Yolo, Generation Peter Pan, etc.) are characterized by numerous paradoxes. We need to adapt to them, by giving priority to listening and caring in our teaching, to the acquisition of skills (including 1) the ability to integrate into an organization, and 2) the ability to take account of industrial, economic and professional issues, which are mentioned on page 7 of this CTI document) rather than knowledge in the strict sense (which quickly becomes obsolete), and by reinventing our assessment tools, which are still too exclusively based on 0-20 grading and positioning in relation to the arithmetic mean. For example, we need to value their cognitive agility, their curiosity, their appetite for co-working and third places, and their hyper-connectedness, which is not just an "inability to concentrate for long periods", or their search for "beauty", "ethics" and "pleasure".
This hyper-connection is in line with the emergence of a "hyper-industrial society", which is also undergoing profound transformations as a result of the penetration of ICTs into 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 all 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 our training programs, which need to include non-scientific and non-technical dimensions such as the organizational, economic, legal, societal, environmental and managerial aspects specific to the emerging digital ecosystems in which our future engineers will evolve and - we hope - flourish.

Revisiting the tubular approach to engineering training

The idea is to offer bridges to other types of skills. By way of illustration, the recent partnership signed with the IAE network is a good avenue to work on and develop, to give our students a few extra keys. The aim is to offer them the opportunity to acquire managerial and entrepreneurial skills, so that they can better open some of the doors that will present themselves throughout their future careers, which will inevitably be "dual-skilled".
This agreement is in line with the numerous local agreements that have existed since 2010 between the IAE and Polytech components of certain universities, targeting new profiles. This dual-skill, dual-entry challenge (engineer-manager/manager-engineer) is also linked to that of lifelong and future training, and the massive challenges of welcoming learners from a vocational training system that has finally been revisited.

Two ideas for tackling these challenges

We propose to reinforce what is currently one of the network's strong points, i.e. exchanges between its 14 schools, and to give priority to the search for relevance.

1. Strengthening exchanges, mobility and cross-functionality

Paradoxically, the network's youth is also an asset in terms of operational flexibility and ability to adapt both to the digital transition phenomenon and to the arrival of new generations of engineering students who are quite different in content and form from those who preceded them.
As far as students are concerned, the schools need to be able to increase overall intra-network mobility on a short and medium-term basis, even if this is already relatively high at the end of the two years of preparatory studies and during the fifth year. The network also needs to improve the mobility of its teaching staff. It must also continue to set up cross-disciplinary services, clusters or departments - in addition to the language departments that help students achieve a TOEIC score of 785 - with a humanities focus (economics, management, law, sociology, etc.), well-structured and offering a significant volume of teaching (up to 20% of the total volume).
These cross-disciplinary entities are proving to be useful, flexible and unifying, and are particularlywelcome by employers, accordingto feedback from post-graduation surveys. They can also act as a 3E (school/student/company) meeting point, providing vital support forapprenticeships and work-study programs.

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

Let's look at one of the main and probably most controversial challenges. It is customary to base the excellence of scientific research and training on the combination of a high level of rigor and relevance.
In this respect, from the point of view of our respective "humanities" departments, it seems to us that rigor (e.g., towards a precise and reliable result?) has for too long been privileged to the detriment of relevance (i.e., towards a useful and adapted result (... to the question posed)? As a result - in a world rich in questioning, disruption, interdisciplinarity and algorithms - we think it's important to move the cursor back to the search for relevance.
The idea is to prioritize the acquisition of relevance-oriented skills. Those that will (somewhat!) preserve white-collar workers and big data. First of all, the student-engineer must learn to understand and define the question posed, to envisage its impacts (even the most improbable and counter-intuitive) and the stakes involved. The second is to propose a reasonable and effective methodological approach (more efficient than effective) to help provide a scientific and technical response that is at once acceptable, frugal and useful.
Faced with a digital world that disrupts the verticality of knowledge, engineers must accept that they can no longer be "the one who knows and can do everything", and become the expert who knows what to say. shameless when he no longer knows !
Marc BidanProfessor of Information Systems Management at Polytech Nantes, University of Nantes; alexandre CabagnolsSenior Lecturer in Economics and Management at Polytech Clermont-Ferrand, Clermont Auvergne University and Roxana Ologeanu-TaddeiShe is a senior lecturer in management science at Polytech Montpellier, University of Montpellier
Visit original version of this article was published on The Conversation.