A new board elected to head France Universités
On Thursday, December 15, 2022, the General Assembly of France Universités elected a new board. With 88,57 % of the votes, Guillaume Gellé, President of Université de Reims Champagne-Ardenne was elected President of France Universités, alongside two Vice Presidents, Virginie Dupont, who is also President of Université Bretagne Sud, and Dean Lewis, who is also President of Université de Bordeaux.
By proposing to implement the initiatives presented at France Universités annual congress in January 2022, the newly elected Executive Committee has signaled its readiness to carry on the work which was begun under the leadership of the outgoing President, Manuel Tunon de Lara.
For Guillaume Gellé, Virginie Dupont and Dean Lewis, the objective is to continue efforts to improve the visibility of higher education institutions within larger society, and notably in the media and among recruiters. They aim to develop better recognition of the public university system’s immense potential, and to continue to interact with public authorities in order to raise their awareness of issues affecting higher education, research and innovation, and student life. Their objective is to continue to make France Universités an intermediary body in the public and political debate.
When our universities are in the spotlight, they fortify the role of science and education as guides for political decision-making and encourage research-based public policy. The country must invest more in its universities: such investment is essential to our collective success and, for our institutions, investment is needed if they are to succeed not only in their educational and scientific missions, but also in their missions relating to economic development and ecological, societal and technological change.
France Universités, formerly known as the Conférence des Présidents d’Université, represents all French universities, numerous university groups, the Instituts Nationaux Polytechniques (INP), French schools abroad, the Écoles Normales Supérieures (ENS), the Instituts Nationaux des Sciences Appliquées (INSA), and other major institutions. Through their leaders, France Universités represents nearly 2 million students and 200,000 staff, including 55,000 teacher-researchers. Its legal role, under in the French Code of Education, is to be a voice for universities in the public debate, to make proposals, and to engage in political negotiation with public leaders at the local, national, European and international levels, including associations of elected officials, public institutions, the media, and actors in the economic, social, and cultural fields.
