Béziers IUT bets on the digital economy

The Béziers University Institute of Technology, a little-known component of the University of Montpellier, places new technologies at the heart of its identity. It's a concentrate of dynamism, focused on the economy of the future.

Béziers IUT forecourt

Digital technology has become its trademark. At first glance, the high-tech identity of theIUT in Berne is obvious. The ultra-modern building generates electricity via solar panels and recycles rainwater. At night, its facade, symbolizing the networks, lights up in blue. Inside, light-wood lecture theatres and classrooms for practical and practical work rub shoulders with a learning lab, a convivial co-learning space housed in a vast gallery of colorful rectangles, like a reinvented Mondrian.

The latest equipment available to the 500 or so students is clearly state-of-the-art: filming unit, motion capture device, virtual reality headsets, 3D scanners, drones, cutting-edge software... From the start of the 2017 academic year, a learning center opens its doors, a modern library geared towards teaching, with digital tablets and acoustic partitions. The IUT even has a department dedicated to educational innovation, on the lookout for new techniques that can be offered to teachers.

Here, selective training is resolutely focused on information and communication technologies. This is the common thread linking its three DUTs (university technology diplomas) at bac +2 level: multimedia and internet professions, marketing techniques, networks and telecoms. A number of bac +3 diplomas round out the range of courses on offer. These include a professional bachelor's degree in networks and telecoms, as well as two university diplomas (DU): a DU in entrepreneurship in new technologies, and the DUETI, which enables students to pursue their studies abroad for a year after obtaining their DUT.

A sign of its dynamism, theBéziers IUT was one of the first to host a Fab Lab, now in its fourth year. With its 3D printer, connected objects and botanical space, this facility enables people from different backgrounds and generations to help each other and exchange skills. To complete the training, an international outlook is a reality here. Every year, around twenty students go abroad, while the IUT welcomes around twenty international students.

A student's view of the IUT

Romain Torres, 1st year student in multimedia and internet professions

"Originally from Toulouse, I chose this course because I'm interested in communication, audiovisual and programming. The IUT is on a human scale, and the building is very new and attractive. The atmosphere is good, even if there aren't many links between students from different courses.

In the first year of the DUT we have a lot of different subjects, we don't specialize yet, but I find that we really learn a lot, especially about creative, audiovisual and graphic design software. Another strong point for me is the large amount of equipment available.

The student corporation or "corpo", which organizes events and parties, is dynamic. Since the start of the 2016 academic year, there has been a student radio station, which broadcasts on the internet every Thursday evening. There are two of us running it, and five or six people taking part in the broadcasts at the moment. We cover all kinds of subjects, and it's open to everyone. We hope the radio will grow with more participants next year."

Key figures

  • 8400 m2
  • 487 students
  • 35 attached teachers
  • 19 administrative staff
  • 6 diplomas
  • 1992: creation of the marketing techniques department, a branch of the Montpellier IUT (university technology institute)
  • 2008: creation of the Béziers IUT as a fully-fledged IUT
  • 2011: inauguration of the new HQE building on place du 14 juillet

The initiative: 48 hours to coach start-ups!

The Béziers business incubator asked them to, and they did. From June 8 to 10, students in the Marketing Techniques department organized an Entrepreneurs' Fair on the premises of the IUT. The aim: to enable the Innovosud business incubator to support a dozen project leaders from the Béziers region over two days. The aim is to get the most promising future entrepreneurs in Béziers off to a flying start.