Frédérique Vidal launches call for projects looking at pathways of delivering education after coronavirus
France’s research minister and its secretary for investment have teamed up to launch a call for projects focused on the “hybridisation of training” in order to help universities adapt to a post-coronavirus world.
Frédérique Vidal, minister of higher education, research and innovation, and Guillaume Boudy, secretary general for investment, said the scheme might save the 2020-21 academic year by “enriching traditional models of teaching” alongside an ongoing digital transformation of higher education. France’s universities were shut in March due to coronavirus and will remain closed to most student and research activity until September, although some activities resumed on 2 June.
Financed under the French Future Investment Programme, the scheme will award projects with €1 million-€5 million.
“The aim is to support higher education institutions to make a success of the new academic year under the best possible conditions and to financially support the development of complete degree courses,” the research ministry stated.
The ministry added that this should happen, “based on shared and modular teaching resources that will enable students in higher and continuing education to build their training paths”.
The plan calls for the EdTech—educational technology—sector to work together with teaching and research institutions on developing distance, hybrid and face-to-face teaching tools for the start of the 2020-21 academic year, “or just-in-time during the year for use in 2020”.
According to the ministry, the selection process will be discursive. France’s National Research Agency, which oversees the funding distribution, will collate a selection committee, which will hold conversations with universities and other research institutions. Promising institutions will be expected to produce a 10-page summary of their plans.
The French higher education and research sectors have been hard hit by the coronavirus pandemic, facing laboratory, library and lecture theatre closures. Many struggled to continue delivering education and supporting scientific activity using hastily assembled distance learning and telecommuting technologies.
The continued closures hit research particularly hard, with only medical laboratories permitted to remain open.
“Recruitment for our degree programmes is complicated at the moment,” said Antoine Decouvelaere, head of continuing education development at business school IÉSEG, on education website EducPros.
International students in particular have been an area of concern, with French universities anticipating a dearth of non-EU students this year.
As reported today by Research Professional News, universities were permitted to open some facilities, including laboratories and libraries, on 2 June through a government decree, which faced some pushback from library professionals.
A version of this article also appeared in Research Europe