Sciences for society and transitions

Through its involvement in collaborative projects, the University of Bordeaux is committed to producing knowledge and solutions that are conducive to the resolution of major environmental and societal challenges. Armed with this new knowledge, it aims gradually to integrate the challenges of transition into all of its education programmes, placing the resolution of these challenges at the heart of its pedagogical approach, while at the same time encouraging interdisciplinarity and a global understanding of complex systems.

It thus supports the development of skills tailored to transforming organisations and facilitating professional integration, especially in the professions of the future. What is more, the institution is committed to its own transition and integrates these issues into its governance processes, supports the initiatives of its communities, and raises awareness among all of its communities, both students and staff, in order to make them into actors engaged in the transition.

Under the impetus of its ACT Major Program (Augmented University for Campus and World Transition), the University of Bordeaux is transforming its campuses into veritable laboratories of experimentation for environmental and societal transformation.

By exploring new practices and developing sustainable solutions, it is reducing its environmental footprint, improving the quality of life, study, and work of its staff and students, and promoting these achievements by sharing them with economic actors and local communities.

This commitment manifests itself in its property investment strategy and in the actions it is taking to promote soft mobility, improve nutrition for its university communities, reduce its emissions and pollution, protect biodiversity across all of its campuses, and contribute to the preservation of natural resources.

The University of Bordeaux plays a leading role in constructing a more sustainable and equitable society. It must contribute to strengthening confidence in academic and scientific scholarship and to the emergence of collective solutions by disseminating academic and scientific culture to all of its target audiences (particularly among younger generations who are sometimes very distant from it), and by developing critical thinking through constant dialogue with citizens.

Through this dissemination of academic and scientific culture and methods, the university aims to contribute to engaging the active players in society. By so doing, it also promotes participatory science approaches in close collaboration with local actors and the general public in order to meet the specific needs of its regions.

In this respect, these initiatives are reflected in the SAPS - Sciences with and for Society (Sciences avec et pour la société) and the SUNSET Major Programme - Sciences with and for a Society in Transition (Sciences avec et pour une société en transitions) — which promotes the development of new interfaces for dialogue between science, research, and society.