[[This video is from the Web TV Nice site
]]“Of course we believed in it!”, assures Agnès Rampal, deputy mayor in charge of higher education. The tone is politically correct, and yet the announcement of this reward surprised more than one.
Nice initially faced failure in the first Campus Plan, launched last February. Only ten universities were selected. The fortunate ones will receive 5 billion euros from the sale of 3% of EDF’s capital.
Nice applied, of course, but being too young (the university was created in 1968 as an annex of the University of Marseille), too small (25,000 students today, when Grenoble, for example, has 80,000 enrolled), and too scattered (students are spread over 7 sites), the University of Nice-Sophia Antipolis was not up to par.
A consolation prize valued at 400 million euros
But Nice did not give up. A second call for proposals was planned for this fall. The Nice file was therefore reworked, focusing on three flagship projects: the OIN of the eco-valley, the Pasteur cancer center, and the renewal of student life. A job that paid off this time.
On Wednesday, November 12, Valérie Pécresse, the Minister of Higher Education and Research, revealed in an interview with Les Echos the names of the 11 university projects deemed “promising” and “innovative.” Dijon, Le Havre, Cergy, and Valenciennes will each receive 20 million euros, and the “promising” projects in Lille, Nancy, Clermont-Ferrand, Rennes, Nantes, Nice, Créteil-Marne-la-Vallée “can receive between 30 and 60 million euros, depending on their scientific potential, the number of students, the investment of local authorities and the quality of the project.” Thus, 400 million euros will be released for these projects that deserve “encouragement,” declared the minister.
In Nice, as soon as the news was known, a press conference was improvised. Led by Agnès Rampal, the main players in this success did not hide their pride. And even if many uncertainties remain, such as the amount of the funding (between 30 and 60 million euros, the difference is significant), grand projects are already raining down. 200 new university housing units, 25,000 new students, a library open 24 hours on weekends, aiming to make Nice a university with international renown.
