Paris-Saclay president aims for global profile

Making sure France’s ambitious mega-university has a truly global profile, and that it bridges the internal divide long thought to weaken the nation’s system, are among the aims of its new president, after her predecessor became higher education minister under Emmanuel Macron.

“What is University Paris-Saclay? It’s basically what I wanted to do for 25 years,” said Estelle Iacona, who was elected to lead the sprawling university in June.  

French engineers typically train at specialised professional schools known as grandes écoles, before getting a doctorate from a large university. By starting at the University of Nantes and graduating to École Centrale Paris, Professor Iacona did the reverse.

“It influenced me in terms of building pathways between universities and grandes écoles,” she said. “I’ve known for a long time that these two institutions need the other one.” 

Building bridges is still an important part of leading Paris-Saclay University, which since 2019 has brought together four grandes écoles, two universities and seven research bodies across a string of campuses south of Paris. 

Integrating these diverse and storied institutions is “almost” complete, she said, with the universities currently following the grandes écoles through a process that links their research and teaching but leaves them with distinct budgets and identities. 

As vice-president and then adviser to the president of CentraleSupélec, her doctoral alma mater and one of Saclay’s four grandes écoles, Professor Iacona was there “before, after and during” its merger with the mega-university. 

She learned that it takes patience for disparate institutions to understand one another. “I was in a hurry to build before people had completely finished thinking,” she said. “It didn’t collapse, but we had some hard times,” she added.

Professor Iacona now has two years to put her stamp on the university as she completes the presidential term of her predecessor, Sylvie Retailleau, who stood down to become Emmanuel Macron’s higher education minister in May. 

As well as concluding integration, her two other institutional priorities are improving the international visibility of the university and making sure it has sustainable funding.

She also wants Paris-Saclay to have more political influence among European universities, to take a leading role in research and teaching on environmental sustainability, and to fight sexual violence on campus. 

She said that the university has already come a long way in terms of visibility: “My neighbour knows what Paris-Saclay is...French companies know Paris-Saclay. If the company needs talent tomorrow, if the company needs innovation tomorrow, the company has to work with us.” 

Having made a name domestically, she wants the institution to become the first choice when firms in Germany and Greece are looking for graduates or collaboration across the breadth of disciplines it excels in.

Visibility will help bring in funding through European projects, she said, but French universities also need more public funding if they are to hire the support staff needed to help their researchers win European Union funds. 

While she shares Professor Retailleau’s concern for struggling undergraduates and wants universities to get more funding to support them directly, Professor Iacona said that she would ask the new minister to prioritise the extra funding that would allow comprehensive universities to do excellent research across and between disciplines, with those institutions needing “a layer [of funding] to be more comfortable on an everyday basis, to get some fresh air”.

Professor Retailleau’s new boss, President Macron, told an audience of university presidents that if re-elected he would grant them more powers, continuing a decades-long shift towards greater autonomy and differentiation designed to create a subset of world-class universities. 

His party has since lost its majority in the National Assembly after a coalition of left-wing parties and the far right made gains. Will that lead to rollback of the elite, integrative model of Paris-Saclay, which allows students and staff to mix disciplines like never before?

“Do we think that the students have better results and better careers 10 years ago or today? Do we think research was better 10 years ago or today? I have my answer, but I don’t think it can be translated into national politics,” Professor Iacona said. “I don’t think it can go back.” 

To continue the project of making French universities world leaders, Professor Iacona said that their leaders must look everywhere for inspiration. “Not only the US, not only Europe, not only Asia,” she added, giving her previous visits to Israel’s Institute of Technology, or Technion, as an example. 

Globe-trotting also helps visibility, the goal that gets her most excited about the new job: “To make sure my institution and all the great jobs my staff are doing with students, with research, that it’s on the scene, that everybody knows. Then they can choose to collaborate or not.”

ben.upton@timeshighereducation.com