Sorbonne wins €238M in national ExcellenceS scheme

Sorbonne University is among the 17 winners, benefiting from a total of €328 million, announced by the Minister of Higher Education and Research on July 12, 2022 in Grenoble.

The "SOUND - SOrbonne University for a New Deal" project

Sorbonne University community and the partners of the Sorbonne University Alliance built this project whose goal is to develop the strategic capacity of our institution over the next ten years. The University’s capabilities to conduct and program its research and education activities will strengthen its collective contribution to the challenges of three major transitions: changing societies, languages and cultures; a global approach to health; resources for a sustainable planet.

The "SOUND - SOrbonne University for a New Deal" project has two sides:

• an academic component with the support of research, education and innovation projects developed to contribute to three major programs: "Societies, languages and cultures in mutation", "Global approach to health", "Resources for a sustainable planet", and to shed light on these transitions that our societies are facing.

At the international level, these transitions summarize the challenges of "One Health", "One Earth" and "One Humanity".

• a more institutional component to consolidate the position of Sorbonne University and the Sorbonne University Alliance as programmers of their research and education activities and as reference actors in their ecosystem.

SOUND is organized in three areas, which will be deployed over the 10 years of the project:

Area 1 consists of strengthening governance and steering processes to facilitate transitions. The objective is to develop our strategic capacity, so that the University is able to orient, implement and adjust over time its collective strategy of contribution to the three identified societal challenges.

Axis 2 responds to a major challenge in the French context: to ensure the expertise at Sorbonne University and the Sorbonne University Alliance can be valued, identified and used by non-academic partners. The project ensures the development of our capacity to reach citizens, the press, public and private decision-makers, and to do this in an adapted manner so that the knowledge produced by Sorbonne University and the Sorbonne University Alliance is available to everyone.

Area 3 creates a space favorable to the emergence of initiatives and gives our academic community the time, conditions and means to develop research, education and innovation projects in the perspective of these three societal challenges.

Sorbonne University and the Sorbonne University Alliance can already rely on the solid structure of the education and research units and on the interdisciplinary entities that are the "Institutes and Initiatives".

SOUND completes this architecture by opening a space for reflection and projection on the major challenges of these three transitions.

The project has been awarded 30,776,373 million euros for a period of 10 years.

This article was first published on 12 July by Sorbonne University.