UTBM September 2020, Welcome !

Dear students,
You are joining us, at the beginning of the 2020-2021 school year, here at the University of Technology Belfort-Montbéliard.
For this occasion, through this video - as given the current situation, I can not speak to you in person, in an auditorium -, I would like to, on behalf of myself and the entire UTBM community, staff, and students, warmly welcome you here with us, to your new home at UTBM!
There are more than 900 of you joining us. 300 of you are beginning your 5-year engineering diploma, following your high school diploma, entering into the “common core”.
More than 500 of you have choosen one of our engineering specialities, from a total of 9 options, including 4 with apprenticeships, you will receive your engineering diploma in 3 years, having already completed 2 years of tertiary educatioon, either through prep classes at a Grande École, or at a university of technology.
For more than 90 of you, you have chosen one of our 6 master’s degrees.
More than 30 of you are beginning this year, a doctorate thesis, in one of our research units, as a UBFC doctorate degree.
You come from all over France and from overseas. From our overseas departments, or from countries all over the world.
UTBM is proud of its rich diversity, with more than 50 nationalities in our community.
I want to quickly reintroduce you today, to your new university. The University of Technology Belfort-Montbéliard, was founded in 1999, merging two establishments, the Belfort Engineering University, and the Sevenans Polytechnic Institute, an antenna of the University of Technology Compiègne. It’s both a Grande École, one of the smallest French universities, and the 7th largest engineering school, out of 205 engineering schools across the country. UTBM is a member of the Conference of Grandes Écoles, the Conference of University Presidents, and the Conference of Deans of French Schools of Engineering.
Alongside its two sister universities, at Compiègne and Troyes, UTBM is one of three French universities of technology.
Since 1999, more than 10 000 engineers, and several hundreds of masters and doctorate students, have graduated from our establishment. They are now working all over the world. Today, you are also becoming a part of this community.
We have 400 staff members accompanying you day by day, teachers, lecturer-researchers, administrative and technical staff, from a rich web of 5000 partner businesses, with an annual budget of just over 40 million euros, the university stretches over 3 campuses, Belfort, Sévenans, and Montbéliard.
To get a look at these sites, as well as our learning and research technological platforms that you will make use of, and to illustrate UTBM’s principle themes, let’s watch the university’s corporate film. See you in a minute then.
FILM
Technology, all technology, nothing but technology, in the singular - as its plural form would be too restrictive and would only invoke the latest technologies - technology is the motto of UTBM and French universities of technology.
The corporate film gave just a brief glimpse. So allow me to spend a little more time on it. At UTBM, our definition of technology is that proposed by Guy Denielou. Aside from being the first head of the first French university of technology, UTC at Compiègle, he was the thinker behind, in the early 1970s, “French” universities of technology.
So his definition of technology remains very valid. Guy Denielou defined technology, as what we call science, when products and procedures of human industry are the focus.
And this is indeed technology for students at a university of technology, and at UTBM particularly.
Understanding products and procedures of human industry, what they could become. Understanding complexity in all its dimensions. The ability to articulate, as philosopher Michel Foucault liked to say, the soft, that is, the human, with the hard, that is, science and the technical. This is one of the goals of the universities of technology, training scientific and humanist engineers, who know both themselves and others, capable of cross-examining a technical point through several lenses: scientific, technical, environmental, societal, etc., aware of their resposability to society understanding the key issues.