LA TRIBUNE SUNDAY – Women admitted to the Polytechnique competition represent only 16% of the workforce this year. Where are the brakes?
LAURA CHAUBARD – Clearly, we are not at the end of the road, while the mobilization is strong among all those involved in scientific higher education. There is a first obvious fact: we need to build bridges with the sectors of the life sciences, where the proportion of women is greater. But we have to go further, we have to understand where the prejudices of the orientation, the cultural prejudices are. To do this, we are in the process of establishing a partnership with Index Education, the publisher of Pronote, the academic monitoring application that equips tens of thousands of middle and high school students. By collecting anonymized data on grades, events, jobs, we seek to identify the barriers that lead to the low feminization of scientific fields and engineering schools.
And on the question of the social diversity of students?
The Polytechnic reaches the end of an educational chain in which inhibitions and self-censorship can slow down vocations. This is a major problem, as we are in a period of low social mobility. Even here we need to understand. The institution of Course upand before the APB, it had for example the unintended effect of concentrating the best profiles in Parisian preparatory classes, to the detriment of high schools located in the regions, which lose their talents capable of training other students. It was obviously not a goal, but it is a consequence.
Has France lost its maths?
We continue to produce excellent mathematicians, recognized throughout the world. We saw in the field ofartificial intelligence. Now, the question of “mathematical culture” arises, it depends mainly on the quality of training throughout the school career. By installing mathematics as an absolute selection criterion, we have created a false sacralization. We feel that in order to understand mathematics, we need to be touched by a kind of enlightenment. In a social evening, no one assumes not to know Victor Hugo. On the other hand, as soon as we talk about mathematics, many people calmly admit that they “don’t understand anything”. Whereas mathematics is just a language, like English.
How to integrate questions related to climate issues in lessons?
The young people we are training today will be at the forefront of climate challenges and many other issues. Our challenge is to convey to them the keys without falling into a reductive vision that would take the environmental transition through the narrow lens, considering that it is only a matter of electrification or demography. It is a systemic challenge that arises, with very strong interdependencies between energy, sociodemographic, digital issues… The other essential key is the scientific approach, thanks to which we can meet this systemic challenge. This does not mean that science is the only solution. This means that, in the face climate problemsthe values of the scientific approach – such as observation, integrity, confrontation with evidence – are essential to make the right observations and move towards solutions.
What do current Polytechnique students want to do next? Are there any significant developments compared to previous generations?
What I have observed in the current generation is the preoccupation with the state of the world. Students are looking for how they can be more helpful. In this logic, there is a clear revival of interest in public service. Other sensitivities are also present, starting with research andindustrywhich plays an increasingly crucial role. Research will fuel disruptive technologies, which will make a difference in a post-transition world, and therefore build our sovereignty. When I meet industrialists today, they systematically talk to me about two things: energy and materials. Between decarbonization and the increasing difficulties of access to raw materials, producers know that they have to drastically transform their production processes. Tomorrow’s solutions require today’s research and training.
The École Polytechnique Foundation is launching a fundraising campaign, with companies and individuals, with the aim of raising 200 million euros. What is this money for?
This collection of funds, the largest ever carried out by a scientific school in France, should make it possible to support three initiatives. The first is to support the talents of tomorrow, with actions in high schools to raise awareness of the appeal of science, or even the exception of scholarships to strengthen the diversity of our profiles. The second approach is to increase our efforts in favor of fundamental research. I am thinking in particular of superconductivity, which would allow electricity to be conducted without loss of energy, or of polarized light, which offers new perspectives in medical diagnosis. The third step, finally, is to renovate, and also to transform, our campus located in Palaiseau, built in 1976. We want, for example, to build a building dedicated to mathematics, which combines teaching, research and reception of visiting researchers. . from all over the world. These places of reception and exchange are essential: more than 40% of our professors-researchers come from the four corners of the world. To attract the best, we have to accommodate well.
