UM named University Innovation Cluster

On Monday, July 10, 2023, Sylvie Retailleau, Minister of Higher Education and Research officially announced the University of Montpellier's designation as a University Innovation Cluster, with a new allocation of €6,500,000 in the second phase, for a total of €9,000,000 allocated over the two phases of the PUI.

" The award of this label is a fine recognition of the work undertaken by the whole of the University of Montpellier, and the partners in our I-SITE Excellence program, in partnership with the region's innovation ecosystem over many years. The UM is a leading centre for innovation, and this confirmation will enable us to further strengthen this collective dynamic ," declared Philippe Augé, President of the University of Montpellier.

The PUI labeling principle in a nutshell

To encourage and accelerate the use of research results for the benefit of the French people, the government is deploying an ambitious policy to promote innovation and startup creation as part of the France 2030 plan. Under the French Research Programming Act (LPR), the University Innovation Clusters (PUI) have been set up to make knowledge and technology transfer more transparent, and to streamline public-private relations and partnerships. Based on specific regional characteristics and constraints, this label makes it possible to implement a consolidated strategy on the scale of a large university site, and to organize exchanges with the business world in an operational way, by closely associating the site's players involved in student entrepreneurship, technology transfer and partnership research activities: universities, organizations, technology transfer accelerator companies, incubators, etc.

Official recognition for the University of Montpellier!

The PUI brings together players who are already working together within the framework of the I-SITE initiative of excellence and/or the SATT AxLR, as well as the main public contributors to the site's innovation effort (Metropole de Montpellier, Occitanie Region, BPI France) who, together, are making the dynamism of innovation in Montpellier an argument for global visibility, and a lever for a region that knows it must rely above all on the knowledge economy for its development. The project is led by the University of Montpellier, which works on behalf of all its partners, members of the PUI, in a spirit of shared governance as was the case during the MUSE project.

After a first phase of experimentation starting in November 2021 with 5 pilot institutions, the French Minister announced last January that 165 million euros would be allocated to their large-scale deployment. For the second phase, the University of Montpellier travelled to ANR headquarters on June 21 for an oral presentation of the second phase of the Montpellier university cluster. The delegation was made up of Philippe Augé, President of the University of Montpellier, who presented the role and policy of the establishment as a leader (transformations achieved and to come in favor of innovation), Philippe Combette, Vice-President of Partnerships and Innovation at the University of Montpellier and coordinator of the PUI, Philippe Nérin, President of SATT AxLR and Clélia Oliva, co-founder and President of TERRATIS, a company supported by the university innovation cluster.

On Monday, July 10, 2023, Sylvie Retailleau, the French Minister for Higher Education and Research, officially announced that the University of Montpellier had been accredited as a university innovation cluster, receiving a total grant of €9 million over the two phases (a higher total amount than the University of Toulouse Innovation, for example).

Objectives and actions specific to the University of Montpellier

Setting up a university innovation cluster in Montpellier means accelerating the transformation of technological or scientific advances into products or services capable of finding their markets, and generating value and jobs in our regions. The overall ambition is to create more sustainable, high-quality connections between the world of higher education and research and the socio-economic world. The PUI brings project partners together around a common strategy of partnerships with economic players to encourage technological and societal innovation. Every effort is made to ensure that the players in the innovation ecosystem work in synergy and complement each other in terms of developing skills, marketing innovation, bringing processes closer together...

So, what are the UM's objectives and actions? Gain a better understanding of our markets and make them more widely known, develop partnerships, train our human resources in innovation, detect more and provide better support for business start-up projects, and ensure efficient steering and management of the project and our entire innovation ecosystem.