This text is part of the special Scientific Francophonie notebook
The need for dialogue: this is what emerged from the 3are International meetings of the scientific Francophonie, which were held in Quebec at the beginning of the month. For scientific knowledge in French to be better valued, universities and the entrepreneurial world must work together.
“We have been saying it and repeating it for several years: universities must act, deploy and train students in their socio-economic context, and not in silos. We need a dialogue,” says Marie Nathalie LeBlanc, vice-rector of the Agence universitaire de la francophonie (AUF), which oversaw the event.
The AUF, an association of French-speaking universities created in 1961 whose head office is in Quebec, aims to promote scientific knowledge in French and to create exchange networks between the different member institutions in America and the Caribbean. , in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia-Pacific. Since 2021, the AUF has organized the World Scientific Francophonie Week, which includes international meetings.
The main theme of this third edition, which was held in Quebec from October 30 to November 3, was the need for a better articulated dialogue between the academic and socio-economic worlds. But be careful, specifies Mme LeBlanc, the “economic Francophonie” is not limited to the business world.
“The AUF has a lot of projects at the moment on this issue, and we are referring to a conception of employability and entrepreneurship which is not strictly limited to the business world,” she explains. It could be a student who will join the world of research or the world of pharmaceutical laboratories… We must not have this limited vision that it is only in management that we train workers who will join companies. »
Moreover, for the first time, the AUF had invited actors from the socio-economic world to participate in its meetings, including Norma Kozhaya, chief economist at the Quebec Employers’ Council.
Laying the Foundation in Primary School
For Abdel Rahamane Baba-Moussa, secretary general of the Conference of Ministers of Education of the Francophonie (CONFEMEN), an organization based in Senegal, this dialogue on the entrepreneurial spirit must begin even earlier.
“It is important that training courses be designed in connection with the business world in general,” says Mr. Baba-Moussa, who was in Quebec during the event. We want to link up with universities so that this is addressed from primary school. »
“In most African universities, the majority of students want to study in social sciences or humanities, while the agricultural and technological sectors are not very popular,” he illustrates. In Benin, the country where I come from, the agronomic sector receives barely 2 or 3% of students, even though agriculture has very significant development potential in the country. »
One of the workshops offered during the conference focused on this theme, says M.me The White. A researcher from Madagascar explained how agriculture is a central economic area, in addition to being an important vector for sustainable development, another major theme discussed repeatedly during the week.
“We were also presented with a project on the development of simulators for health research, which makes it possible to produce medical equipment at lower cost, making it more accessible,” adds M.me The White.
“It’s another form of link between the scientific world, where research is done, and the socio-economic world, where it is applied,” she says.
A patent… And then?
Stakeholders in the scientific Francophonie have also talked a lot about the question of intellectual property, another major issue which brings to the forefront the need to build stronger bridges between science and businesses. Once the patent has been filed, the scientific discovery unfortunately too often remains on the shelf if no company decides to develop it, explains Marie Nathalie LeBlanc.
“If the discovery is not operationalized, the person may lose their patent,” she laments. At that point, someone else can use the patent or knowledge for their own use. So, there is this issue of maintaining the intellectual property of the developers, but also of having a passage. And often, academia does not have the tools or means to move from idea to product. »
But apart from all these crucial themes and issues discussed during the week, the vice-rector of the AUF underlines the magic of the moments created as part of this event which brought together nearly 600 people.
“I put a representative of a university in Vietnam in contact with a rector of a university in Chile, and they talked about exchanging projects,” she cites as an example. Creating this type of networking that we don’t often see is one of the aspects that I find truly magical! »
This content was produced by the Special Publications team at Duty, relating to marketing. The writing of the Duty did not take part.