Excellence with passion
INVESTMENTS AND INVOLVEMENT IN TRAINING AND RESEARCH IN RESPONSE TO THE CHALLENGES OF THE ENERGY TRANSITION
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ISAE-SUPAERO and the ISAE-SUPAERO Foundation are working together and shouldering their share of the responsibility for meeting these major challenges facing our society. Their actions involve increasing awareness and training for future aeronautical engineers and the development of research programs for handling energy and climate challenges more effectively.
INCREASING STUDENT AWARENESS OF ECOLOGICAL CHALLENGES
Caroline Bérard, Director of Engineering Training, reminded the 220 first-year students that “Aviation has met three challenges: getting planes to fly, making them safe, and widening access to them by bringing production costs down. There is now a fourth, and it will be up to you to meet it – designing decarbonized futur aircraft.” The tone was set.
Calling upon students, raising their awareness and encouraging them to interact in situations of collective intelligence – these are the objectives of the climate fresco, a 3-hour creative workshop that consists in finding and explaining the causal links between the 42 cards in the deck and co-constructing a real climate change “Fresco”.
This innovative teaching method is in line with #Larentréeclimat, a national initiative aimed at training 10,000 students at Grandes Écoles on the stakes of climate change.
80% of the first-year students at ISAE-SUPAERO want training in sustainable development. . In response to this desire, ISAE-SUPAERO now offers its first- and second-year engineering students an "Energy Transition: What Role for Engineers? module". In the 3rd year, students can choose the “Energy, Transport and Environment” module as a field of application.
To take things further, the OSE l’ISAE-SUPAERO diversity program plans to expand the climate fresco workshop to 22 middle schools and high schools starting in the 2019/2020 school year to increase awareness among young people.
CLIMATE – A PRIORITY IN HIGHER EDUCATION
More broadly, ISAE-SUPAERO’s President, Olivier Lesbre, has signed the manifesto put out by The Shift Project, a think tank working for an economy freed of carbon constraints. Its recent work on teaching for climate and energy challenges in higher education have brought forth a strong desire in the higher education community and among students for an organized educational response to climate challenges. Over 80 heads of institutions and 1,000 professors and researchers at the top of a list of some 7,500 signatories have called upon the French government to "initiate a transition strategy for higher education that places the climate as the primary emergency."
ALUMNI GET INVOLVED
The SUPAERO-DECARBO collective, comprising some twenty engineers from the 2000 and 2001 graduating classes, has called upon the ISAE-SUPAERO Foundation for its role in the energy transition in the aviation industry. In response, the Foundation has decided to include this environmental aspect in its raison d’être, positioning itself on major challenges going far beyond the short term. “The Foundation is working to enhance the Institute’s reputation and worldwide leadership by proposing and speeding up innovative projects that contribute to a sustainable world.”
POWERFUL INITIATIVES FOR THE AIR TRANSPORT OF TOMORROW
Several research Chairs have been created by ISAE-SUPAERO in recent years with the help of the Foundation and industrial partners in aviation to work on new high-quality air transport concepts while reducing our ecological footprint.
The Cedar Chair, “Chair for Eco-Design of AiRcraft”, was created by Airbus 6 years ago to define breakthrough concepts in air transport by including innovative technologies starting in the aircraft’s design phase. Renewed at this year’s Paris Air Show in Le Bourget, it is pursuing these main orientations while adding a more global environmental engineering approach.
This Chair contributes to increasing awareness and training future aeronautical engineers on the subject of sustainable development in air transport. It provides support for research on innovative concepts to prepare the next generations of transport aircraft.
This is also the purpose of the Safran-AEGIS Chair launched in 2016, focusing on reducing the environmental footprint of aeronautical propulsion while reducing its pollution emissions and noise. It is working on new formulas for integrating engines and the airframe. On an economic level, fuel consumption is a key concerns, but operability, maintenance, and missions are also taken into account.
Launched in 2019, the Daher Chair works on carrying out research on the design and certification of light aircraft using hybrid electric propulsion.
NO STUDENT SHOULD BE ABLE TO GRADUATE FROM A TRAINING PROGRAM IN HIGHER EDUCATION WITHOUT HAVE UNDERSTOOD THE CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES OF CLIMATE CHANGE AND WORKED ON IDENTIFYING POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS
EVERYDAY INITIATIVES ON CAMPUS
A sustainable development and social responsibility unit (DDRS) has been set up, including students, professors, research professors and staff.
Its purpose is to work on projects, studies and events concerning sustainable development and social responsibility.
Students at ISAE-SUPAERO receive training in coordination for use of the Climate Fresco as a collaborative tool to increase awareness in high schools and middle schools (in collaboration with OSE l’ISAE-SUPAERO).
A zero waste residence, with student associations involved (SUPAERO for Earth).
The Institute’s participation in the European Week for Waste Reduction, air quality, mobility, promotion of student actions.
Innovation-creativity project on sustainable development, an ecological vegetable garden, beehive installation, recycling, etc.
Mobility plan, participation in the Sustainable Development Week and in the “Allons-Y A Vélo” ” (Let’s go by Bike) event, carpooling, etc.
