UTC-Compiegne was established in 1972 as France’s first experimental university of technology and listed as a national scientific, cultural and professional establishment. It opened to receive its first class of students in 1973.
Each month, numerous events will celebrate this 50th anniversary year of the UTC!
JANUARY
Traditional French New Year’s greetings
Launching UTC’s Jubilee Year
FEBRUARY
Launching the Jubilee Totem artistic project // Aurélien Morizet-Mahoudeaux, UTC graduate, artist-sculptor.
MARCH
The anti-waste month
The month for equality
Inaugural conference "Femmes et numérique : pratiques égalitaires, dispositifs inclusifs" by Isabelle Collet, prof. in educational sciences at the University of Geneva.
APRIL
The month for reasoned feeding
MAY
The month of soft mobility
Interactions presse // Some UTC jewels in green research.
Launching the Prize for Sustainable Development and Corporate Responsibility (SDCR) organized by the UTC Foundation for Innovation.
Special evening // The Amicale celebrates its 40th Anniversary.
JUNE / JULY
The month of Eco-responsibility
Inauguration of a nomadic, immersive exhibition.
UTC’s in-house magazine Interactions publishes a Special Jubilee issue.
UTC « en fête » // Animations, surprises, walls of fame, a festive luncheon, a musical afterwork event…
AUGUST
UTC-Compiegne hosts the French UT Group Seminar to mark its 50th anniversary.
SEPTEMBER
An inaugural lecture // by Tom Laperche, UTC Graduate, « sports élite », navigator, skipper of the Figaro Bretagne CMB Performance.
A series of SDCR lectures delivered by some major tenets of sustainable development.
UTC’s Alumni hit the Seine.
UTC’s Alumni celebrate UTC Jubilee.
OCTOBER
A series of SDCR lectures delivered by some major tenets of sustainable development.
Lecture "Tech to the rescue of the planet? ", hosted by Philippe Bihouix, Managing Director of AREP.
NOVEMBER
A series of SDCR lectures delivered by some major tenets of sustainable development.
Lecture on biodiversity, hosted by Bruno David, paleontologist, marine biologist and former president of the National Museum of Natural History.
UTC’s Alumni fête UTC
A weekend of UTC Graduate celebrations
The UTC diploma awards ceremonies.
DECEMBER
Inauguration of the sculptures // Aurélien Morizet-Mahoudeaux, plastic artist and UTC graduate.
Award ceremony for the SDCR Prize of the UTC Foundation for Innovation.
Closing ceremony for 50 years of UTC.
Responsible challenges
The University of Technology is the result of a carefully thought out, coherent and deliberate effort.
First of all, its location is the result of a careful assessment of several possible regions, which highlighted the advantages of the City of Compiègne situated in a region undergoing rapid industrial development.
The choice of technology as the dominant thematic also arose from a concerted and well-considered decision. Technology, which is nothing other than the name we give to science when it identifies as its object the products and processes of human industry, is most obviously increasingly necessary in all growth hypotheses.
The industrial development that France is enjoying today demands that its scientific research in this area be worthy and fitting to these circumstances!
Guy Deniélou – 1973
Founder President of UTC-Compiegne
Excerpt from an article published in the City of Compiegne’s official Townhall Bulletin.
During the 1960s, Professor Guy Deniélou joined a think tank members of which included such prestigious individuals as Pierre Guillaumat, acting Minister for National Education, and Pierre Aigrain, Director of Higher Education. Together, they thought about the creation of a pilot institution of applied sciences and proposed the creation of a new university called "Paris Nord".
As they saw things, France's relative technical backwardness resulted from a certain contempt for technology, seen and deemed a subculture, without recognition either as a basic or an applied science, and which did not allow access to management positions. Their wish was therefore to create a new type of engineer who can fulfil his or her role as executives.
Opening up to the outside world was a second challenge. Technology must be taught with industrialists who sit on the academic board to participate in strategic choices, likewise on the scientific council to help define scientific policy, and on the various academic departmental boards to guide training choices and priorities.
In 1971, the year technology was introduced in the fourth and second grades in the French schools, Pierre Billecocq, Secretary of State for National Education, presented the main lines of this new university. Guy Deniélou was appointed by Olivier Guichard, Minister for National Education, to create and direct this university prototype.
What could be more stimulating than to say that as we face the major challenges we are living, at a clearly historical turning point for both Humanity and the planet Earth, UTC-Compiegne has an primordial role to play.
As a object specifically designed and created to advance knowledge, practices and technology as a link between Society and industries, UTC-Compiegne has all the assets needed to create lots of added value.
Together, we can all add lots of value in this battle because of our capacities to engage in research activities, to train, to think differently, to imagine new approaches.
I firmly believe in our ability to meet the challenges of ongoing changes, in our ability to accompany Society and companies in necessary changes.
This is why the Jubilee celebrations of UTC-Compiegne are placed under the banner of the full commitment of UTC ready as it is to undertake a new impulse forward.”
Claire Rossi – 2023
Executive Vice-Chancellor and Director of UTC-Compiegne
Excerpt from Prof Rossi’s inaugural speech launching UTC’s Jubilee Year
Tuesday, January 24, 2023, more than 250 UTC staff members were present at the 50th anniversary launching ceremony.
Our thanks to the students of the Capharnaüm and Profit'roles Associations who animated this convivial moment!
Prof. Claire Rossi, Executive Vice-Chancellor and Director of UTC-Compiegne
Patrick Dupin, president of the UTC Foundation for Innovation
Students in the Capharnaüm associations fanfare.
A student from the Profit’rôles association plays Guy Deniélou in an exchange with Director Prof. Claire Rossi.
UTC staff discover the Jubilee Programme
En route for the festivities
Responsible challenges
The objective of this first month of responsible challenges: to reduce waste
In the Oise region, the quantity of household and similar waste per inhabitant is 679 kg per year (one of the highest in France).
Orienting our production and consumption patterns in a sustainable way by reducing waste production is an important issue for Society.
Indeed, poor waste management contributes to climate change and air pollution and affects many ecosystems and species.
So, what is the best solution? Recycling! Landfills, considered the last option in the waste hierarchy, release powerful greenhouse gases associated with climate change.
Depending on their design, landfills can also contaminate soil and water. Recycling waste is even more effective when it comes to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and other pollutants.
When recycled materials replace new materials, we need to extract or produce less raw material.
Another solution can also be waste recovery: the energy used to incinerate or recycle waste can be used to generate heat or electricity, thus replacing energy obtained from coal or oil, which can help us reduce greenhouse gas emissions. (Source: European Environment Agency, Territory Observatory)
Upcoming event: Waste collection organised by Compiègne en Transition UTC and Compiègne en Transition Ville
"Women and the digital world: egalitarian practices, inclusive devices" – Lecture by Prof Isabelle Collet
Digital technology is playing an increasing role in our Society, but women, professionally speaking, are under-represented. Today, less than 15% of computer science students in higher education in most European countries are women.
It is impossible to continue to be satisfied with a technical world designed, developed, installed and maintained by a population that is more than 80% male, because a population that is too homogeneous cannot imagine a digital world that serves both genders.
Higher education must take up the challenge of gender diversity by finding solutions for more diversity in their ranks.
Isabelle Collet is an assistant Professor at the University of Geneva, Department of Education Sciences where she leads the G‑RIRE team: Gender – Intersectional Relations, Educational Relation. Since September 2022, she is the President of the Section of Education Sciences within the Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences.
Responsible challenges
The objective of this second challenge: to adopt a regime of less expensive, more ecological and tastier food
Within the framework of the deployment of the DD&RS (Sustainable Development & Social Responsibility) strategy deployed by UTC-Compiegne, a challenge on the scale of the year 2023 will be proposed, organized in the form of short thematic quizzes each month, workshops and conferences in order to encourage the participants (students, staff, Alumni or inhabitants of Compiègne), to move towards more sustainable and responsible lifestyles, in a game-oriented spirit.
Visit the UTC social networks to discover the interest of eating seasonal fruit and vegetables. The UTC-Compiegne Preventive Medicine and Students’ Health Relay (ERS) is there to answer your questions!
UTC-Compiegne – a university training model designed to respond to changes in the world, is aware of the major transitions underway.
The partnership foundation is committed to accompanying this change and is mobilising its forces on the occasion of UTC's 50th Jubilee anniversary.
The UTC Foundation for Innovation is organising a competition entitled "Innovation for the Ecological transition and social commitment". The awards ceremony for this major competition will mark the end of the Jubilee programme on December 12, 2023.
Three prizes will be awarded:
- a Positive Impact Innovation Prize, for "research, development, technological and educational innovation", for a project in progress or in the start-up phase at the time of submission, demonstrating the innovative nature of the project, aimed at students, doctoral students, lecturer-research scientists and engineers and UTC alumni (Prize amount €10 000 plus support/coaching);
- a Citizen Commitment Prize, which recognises the commitment of an Association, demonstrating an Eco-responsible approach, presenting a project in progress or in the start-up phase at the time of submission, aimed at student associations affiliated to the Students’ Union (BDE) (Prize amount €4 000 plus support/coaching);
- and a special Jury prize.
Deadline for applications: September 30, 2023
Don't be afraid – sign up for the competition
Responsible challenges
The aim of this challenge is to make the UTC community aware of the concept of an Eco-responsible web site.
As part of UV SI01, awareness-raising activities are planned for the month of June.
Among them, podcasts, conferences and web workshops will be organised, in order to make the participants (students, lecturers, UTC staff) think about this notion.
The aim of this challenge is to get participants to think about their computing habits, by asking themselves about the sustainable, ethical and responsible aspects of technology.
Visit us in person or on our social networks to find out more about the notion of an eco-responsible web!
Discussion focusing on a more ethical web
Are you really aware of your digital footprint?
Algorithms are often controversial because of their opacity and influence. How can we make them more democratic?
In the presence of Clément Mabi, lecturer-research scientist in UTC’s Costech laboratory and Arabie Chandran, Manon Chemin, Quentin Duchemin, Tobias Ollive and Alexandre Teixeira, UTC undergraduates.
Box podcast – tell the past while creating the future
Another fruitful collaboration between the Lycée des Métiers d’Arts in Saint-Quentin and the UTC’s industrial design engineering programme has led to the creation of the 50th Anniversary Box.
The nomadic and immersive exhibition was conceived with the aim of telling the story of UTC in an original way. The idea is to create an immersive wooden space to broadcast podcasts created to mark the school’s 50th anniversary.
“Anne-Fleur Andrle, a UTC graduate and producer of podcasts, suggested as an alternative a series of podcasts, in tune with the times and more “alive”. We had to come up with a way of ‘offering’ these episodes, and the idea of a sort of ‘cocoon’ in which we could settle down and take the time to listen to the story came up,” explains Dorothée Prot-Tombini, a graphic designer in the UTC communications team who has been working for over a year on the UTC’s 50th anniversary and the concept of an immersive box.
“We also wanted an exhibition that would reach out to people and be easily accessible. As there are several UTC buildings scattered around the city, the idea of a nomadic exhibition seemed relevant to us. That’s how we came up with the idea of a ‘box’ that could be easily assembled, dismantled and transported by our logistics team, who provide invaluable assistance. We then designed the scenography of this exhibition around the box, which would include key dates in the history of UTC-Compiegne, photos and anecdotes in the form of multi-sized totems made of recycled cardboard”.
Academic year Inaugural lecture
Tom Laperche, who graduated from UTC in 2020 in the “Mechanical engineering” major, sailor and co-skipper of the Trimaran Ultim SVR-Lazartigue, was our guest of honour at the inaugural lecture in Autumn 2023.
He was accompanied by Adrien Picard (Sport Elite Aviation) and Romain Bel (Sport Elite Fencing), likewise mechanical engineering majoring UTC students.
The trio were able to share their experiences with an audience made up mainly of new UTC Common Core students.
By Aurélien Morizet-Mahoudeaux, plastic artist and UTC graduate.
The UTC unveiled the artistic work of Aurélien Morizet-Mahoudeaux on the Philanthrope terrace.
Indeed, to mark the 50th anniversary of UTC, the establishment called on one of its former students to create an artistic installation made up of 4 sculptures built within its premises.
The design of this project brings together the desire for artistic creation with the technical challenge linked to the engineering profession. It responds to the desire to offer an eco-responsible, participatory work on the scale of the architecture of buildings.
