The last two are not yet official partners but agreements with ITMO are currently being worked on, as they already have several promising areas for collaboration with our university. Paris-Sud is one of the best universities in France, and is included in the top-300 world leading universities according to QS rankings. Its Polytech engineering school has long been interested in collaborating with ITMO, especially with the Metamaterials Laboratory led by Pavel Belov. The French University is also ready to collaborate in what has to do with academic exchange programs. In 2016, many French universities introduced a mandatory academic mobility period of no less than 3 months. Hence, Paris-Sud is actively looking for partners with a strong scientific and academic base for internship programs — and ITMO University is amongst the most promising ones as it offers not only great facilities and resources, but also a vast choice of programs in English.
As of now, the French educational system is undergoing significant changes. According to representatives of Paris Saclay, it’s moving in the direction of university mergers. The enormous amount of small universities is to be replaced by big combined ones that will have many schools training students in different fields of science. By doing so, the French government wants to raise the competitiveness of French education. Also, such reform will ease the process of creating new collaborations, as making lots of agreements with different partners all over the country will no longer be necessary.
Speaking of Paris Saclay, the schools will unite not only formally, but also geographically. They are already building a common university campus where most of the consortium's institutions and schools will move. The students will gain access to all of the university's territory, not just a particular school.
"Recently, Guillaume Garreta, formerly head of the "Pôle connaissance" at the embassy of France in Russia, joined Paris Saclay as the director of the international development functions. He has been living in Saint Petersburg for quite a long time and is well acquainted with the Russian educational system, so we can well expect the collaboration projects to go really smoothly", comments Elena Shumeiko.
Like ITMO, French universities are really interested in collaborations that have to do with double degree programs. Representatives of ParisTech are ready to launch such programs in the fields of optics, computer science, mechatronics, etc. Thus, ITMO's students will have more programs to choose from, and French students will have an opportunity to come to St. Petersburg.
Though ITMO is most famous for its achievements that have to do with technical sciences, its French partners also know of its rapidly developing Faculty of Technological Management and Innovations. Its partners from University of Montpellier and ESIEE Paris are planning to collaborate in this field, as well. The French students were really interested in the "IT and Innovations Business in Russia" program, asked lots of questions about life in Russia, the costs, living conditions and infrastructure in Saint Petersburg.
To sum up, France continues to be one of ITMO's most essential international collaboration directions. As of now, our students participate in several academic mobility programs in France, and next year their number is expected to increase.
"French students are also interested in studying in Russia. Until lately, there were many preconceptions about it — mostly that it's all in Russian and the like, but ITMO University gradually dispels them. It's really great to see that French universities are open to collaboration, how the number of our French partners grows, and ITMO becomes more and more visible worldwide", concludes the expert.
ITMO's Institute of International Development and Partnership
