Thierry Coulhon: France’s mega-universities ‘had to happen’

It is almost a decade and a half since Thierry Coulhon accepted the formidable task of creating French mega-universities capable of competing with the likes of Harvard University and Imperial College London.

Today, the former ministerial advisor – who ran the Initiatives d’Excellence (Idex) programme from 2010 to 2012 – is heading one of the institutions that he helped to envisage: Institut Polytechnique de Paris (IP Paris), a coalition of six highly selective engineering grandes écoles, located in the Paris-Saclay technology campus.

Originally, IP Paris’ schools were meant to be part of Paris-Saclay University – the mega-campus set to house 70,000 students and 12,000 researchers – yet the institution’s separation from Saclay has been beneficial for both parties, explained Professor Coulhon.

“They have gone further separately than they would have gone together,” he said on internal reforms with Paris-Saclay and IP Paris, explaining that the “governance of the grandes écoles and universities was so different” that the original Saclay mega-merger was likely to cause conflict.

That means there are now “two cultures” within the Saclay-IP Paris cluster, he continued. “You have a culture [at Saclay] that is more academic, which starts with knowledge and later concentrates on innovation and industry. The other story is that you start with tech – and that is the story of IP Paris,” said Professor Coulhon, who notes how the Harvard-Massachusetts Institute of Technology axis confirmed it was possible to “have two world-class institutions with different identities in the same place”.

Not everyone is so convinced by the new mega-university model now operating in Paris, Marseille, Bordeaux and Strasbourg, with the recent difficulties in electing a new Paris-Saclay president highlighting, in some eyes, the uneasy nature of alliances within these experimental institutions.

One might imagine it could be difficult for IP Paris’ subsidiaries to cohere given their very different histories and traditions. École Polytechnique is a military school founded in the late 18th century by Napoleon where students still wear full military-dress uniforms on graduation; Telecom SudParis was only started in 1979. The oldest institution – ENSTA Paris – was founded earlier than École Polytechnique, back in 1741, with the desire to help make better warships for Louis XV.

“In every organisation it is always difficult to mix brands and identities,” admitted Professor Coulhon, whose schools cover defence, civil engineering, telecoms and economics. “But in IP Paris, that’s perhaps not so difficult – we are diverse but share a common culture,” he added, noting “governance is similar, corporate relations are very strong and alumni are everywhere on our boards”.

Increasingly, the specialisms of these schools are starting to overlap, with mathematicians, engineers and statisticians working between institutions, added Professor Coulhon, who took office in September 2023. “There is often no discontinuity – people walk from different departments, and there are lots of scientific relations [between schools],” he said.

Increased scale is also starting to reap benefits for IP Paris’ researchers, he continued, noting how the institutions recently won, in collaboration with HEC Paris, €70 million (£58 million) in research funding for artificial intelligence. “No single school – not even École Polytechnique – could have done this,” he insisted.

The increased international visibility of IP Paris’ research thanks to its growing overseas reputation is also important: it ranked 71st globally in the latest Times Higher Education World University Rankings, France’s third highest institution.

That kind of success means the heads of the highly prestigious constituent schools are firmly behind the IP Paris project, he said.

“None of them would be here unless they did not believe part of their future belonged to IP Paris. They want badly to be part of this – they are all aware of the rules and benefits of this situation – international impact, funding success.”

More broadly, however, Professor Coulhon felt the Idex scheme, which has invested €10.7 billion (£8.9 billion) in 17 university clusters, has yet to fulfil its potential, notably with the failure to federate universities in Toulouse and Lyon.

“No-one ever thought there would be a single university in Marseille or Strasbourg but it has been achieved, and we’ve changed the landscape of higher education in Paris too,” he reflected: “It had to happen.

“But while we create incentives for universities to change themselves this may not be enough – perhaps there should be more of a top-down strategy from the ministry.”

France’s system of electing university presidents should also be examined, said Professor Coulhon, who returned to government for three years as an adviser to Emmanuel Macron in 2017 following stints in Australia and as president of Paris Sciences et Lettres – PSL Research University Paris.

“We should allow university presidents to come from the outside – it almost never happens, barring a few exceptions, and it means there isn’t really a market for university leaders. Why do you need to work 20 years in a university before you are elected?” he asked.

In rankings terms at least, Idex is already starting to pay dividends with four French universities listed in THE’s top 100 this year. For Professor Coulhon, however, mergers like IP Paris are catalysing something more exciting.

“That integration is helping to energise faculty, and we’re seeing new joint masters and PhDs. As we spot new challenges – AI, climate, oceans – we’re working together on a scale that just was not possible before.”

jack.grove@timeshighereducation.com