Since 2015, NewCorp Conseil has been the University of Lyon's consulting agency for the communication of the Idex application.

The awarding of the Idex label by the international jury at the end of the final hearing on 20 February 2017, and validated by the Prime Minister on 25 February, is therefore an immense satisfaction. It is the well-deserved - and long-awaited - result of an enormous amount of teamwork under the supervision of Khaled Bouabdallah, President of the University of Lyon, and Jean-François Pinton, President of the ENS de Lyon and leader of the Idex project, not forgetting the tremendous background work carried out behind the scenes by Fanny Viot as the project manager.

(The Initiative of Excellence (Idex) call for projects, launched by the French National Research Agency (ANR) and the General Investment Commission (CGI), aims to select research universities with a global reach and a top-level scientific impact in broad fields of knowledge, in the service of France's attractiveness and image in the world. The label is awarded by an international jury).

It is also an institutional project

Beyond the academic recognition, such an Idex application, by its process and the project it carries, is also an extraordinary institutional and corporate challenge which consisted in federating a very large and diverse academic, political and economic community that had to be brought together around a common project; in building a new brand and visual identity shared and co-branded by all the establishments, in the service of a new visibility and pride of belonging; in defining a real long-term strategic project proposing a major and innovative transformation and transition of the University.

Universities, new territorial and societal actors

Universities have not only become brands, obviously evolving in an international competition, but also territorial projects associating all the stakeholders, as the stakes and interests are linked and mutually beneficial. The major university centres are now fully involved in the issues of marketing and territorial attractiveness, which are major assets in the service of reputation and global performance. The institutional communication of these major academic clusters, and of each of their components, is one of the essential tools contributing to the enhancement of expertise, federating players, raising the profile, attracting talent, and developing resources and projects.

Moreover, if the communication and transition challenges of large universities are increasing, it is also because they are experiencing a triple economic interconnection in full development:

1/ with the whole of their ecosystem as links develop between the academic and economic spheres, between training and entrepreneurship, between public and private research partnerships... universities are neither sanctuaries nor monasteries, but connected universes, open to the world and to their environment.

2/ Within the university centres themselves, the time is ripe for the quest for multidisciplinarity and the cross-fertilisation of knowledge, as it seems important to be able, at times, to break out of disciplinary silos in order to distort thought patterns and even open up minds and shape people! While vertical logics are still strong and often logical, cross-disciplinary and hybrid approaches are becoming more and more attractive as it appears that innovation and novelty, particularly disruptive, come from these border areas, from the telescoping of expertise.

3/ a societal interconnection. In order to meet the major challenges of our time, scientific knowledge appears to be central and decisive, whether it is a question of finding new technological solutions in terms of energy saving, optimising production processes, combating pollution, agricultural alternatives, adapting to climate change, etc. but also in terms of new management methods, medical research, alleviating psychological disorders, combating conflicts of all kinds ... knowledge is increasingly considered (or even fantasised) as the key to re-inventing a more sustainable and harmonious world, between people, and between man and nature.

For all these reasons, the large university complexes of tomorrow, for teaching and research, are key players in the new world to be built. At the heart of the production and transmission of knowledge, they are also essential places for generational transition.

---

Read the press release on the Idex accreditation of the University of Lyon:

SUCCESS OF THE IDEXLYON PROJECT: THE INITIATIVE OF EXCELLENCE LABEL IS AWARDED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF LYON