Trinity and the Sorbonne discussing bilateral partnership

Posted on: 08 April 2019

Trinity College Dublin and Sorbonne University, one of France’s top institutions, met to discuss future collaborations.

Both the Sorbonne and Trinity are members of the League of European Research Universities (LERU) and therefore help deliver the European Research and Education Area. They are also part of separate multi-University European Alliance applications made to the Erasmus+ European Universities call for proposals.

Bilateral meetings have taken place between both institutions with a large delegation from the Sorbonne University, led by its President Professor Jean Chambaz visiting Trinity College recently. During the two-day meeting, delegates from the Sorbonne met with some of their counterpart experts from Trinity College to discuss common research and educational approaches in these areas.  There are discussions around the inclusion of Digital Humanities, Global Brain Health and Neuroscience, Advanced materials, Ageing research and Cancer as part of the strategic partnership.

Sorbonne University’s President, Prof Chambaz & Provost Dr Prendergast with visiting French delegation and Trinity faculty.

The partnership will include a significant collaboration between both leading universities, as an important mutual strategic step towards the expansion of humanities, science and medicine research via European collaboration.

Commenting on the significance of the partnership, President Prof Jean Chambaz said:

“At a time calling for a new engagement for Europe, Sorbonne University is putting a strong emphasis on re-enforcing cooperation with European partners. The meeting with Trinity confirmed that we share the same vision regarding our internationalisation as well as our willingness to develop joint activities pushing the envelope of our knowledge further in some important domains.” In addition, Trinity and Sorbonne show many commonalities that will be explored further, providing important opportunities for joint-research, student mobility and innovation.”

Provost, Dr Patrick Prendergast said:

“Trinity is the top performer in EU funding in Ireland securing nearly 14% of the total Horizon 2020 funding and is currently in 34th position across all European Universities to secure funding from the programme.  The Sorbonne is also a top performer with similar ambitions to develop more EU success. High quality European university partnerships are vital, particularly in the current Brexit environment where we need to diversify strategic University partnerships across Europe. This also resonates both with our newly launched Global Strategy which includes for the first time a focus on Europe and of course our Research Diversification Strategy which has European funding at its core.”  

A crucial aspect to this partnership is aligned with Trinity College’s global relations strategy’s  student and staff mobility opportunities.  An ambitious target has been set to achieve 100 students moving to and from Trinity and the Sorbonne within the next 3-5 years.  The development of dual or joint degrees for student cohorts in Sorbonne and Trinity has also been discussed.

During the two-day meeting at Trinity, presentations on Digital Humanities and ancient manuscripts were made and there were visits to the Global Brain Health Institute (GBHI) and the Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience where the delegation met with many of the principal investigators including the prestigious European Research Council award holders who are associated with the Institutes.  They also visited the Science Foundation Ireland Research Centre for Advanced Materials and BioEngineering (AMBER) at Trinity.

This was followed by presentations on research and education in cancer and the development of the Trinity St James Cancer Institute as well as work ongoing in ageing and in particular The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing, (TILDA) and the Intellectual Disability Supplement to The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (IDS-TILDA).

Mechanisms of cooperation were also explored with the career development service and the new Trinity Global Strategy was outlined with the two-day event concluding with an overview of the importance of EU funding for Trinity and instruments that could be used to facilitate collaboration.

The visit was supported by the French Embassy in Ireland and its Science Attaché Dr Marc Daumas attended the two-day visit.