“Train to transform”
Thinking ecology, economy and humanism together
The Campus de la Transition is a place of teaching, research and experimentation created in 2018 by a collective of lecturer-researchers, entrepreneurs and students united by a common will:
“Promote an ecological, economic and humanist transition, on the scale of the issues that are shaking up our century.”
This triple dimension allows the Campus de la Transition to radically innovate in the content of its teachings, as well as in its pedagogy. The learner’s experience continues well beyond the threshold of the “lecture hall”. The stakes of an ecological, economic and social transition concern our minds as much as our hearts and bodies.
What is the Transition Campus?
An academic laboratory that offers new multidisciplinary teaching programs aligned with ecological issues. The Campus is also a research laboratory, focusing notably on new pedagogical practices for teaching complex thinking and processes of systemic change.
The Campus has taken root on an eco-site in transition, the Domaine de Forges, which allows immersed students to experience the spring of a new paradigm.
The Campus offers various forms of training, to students, teachers and professionals, in addition to accompanying companies and institutions in their transition. The aim is to make these audiences aware of the urgency of an ecological and social transition and to equip them to contribute to it.
For organizations, it is a question of integrating regenerative and visionary strategies by mobilizing the skills acquired during their custom-made stays at the Campus.
The Campus de la Transition is a non-profit association under French law, constituted on December 21, 2017, registered in January 2018, currently chaired by Cécile Renouard.
We are driven by two convictions
- No systemic transformation can take place without a deep personal appropriation and understanding of the stakes. Solving complex problems goes beyond individual initiative and requires an approach that is intellectually and ethically structured in a new way in terms of representations of the world (epistemology) and associated metrics (indicators).
- A simple and coherent way of life allows for peaceful relationships with oneself and with others. We promote the idea of a good life (buen vivir), full of meaning, in a respectful and more adjusted relationship with all forms of living, with the wealth of the planet, with human frailties for the generations to come.
Why the Campus de la Transition?
Meeting contemporary energy, climate, environmental and societal challenges requires thinking about new economic models, new quality and performance indicators, new ways of producing and consuming, managing existing resources, relating to time (integrating the long term) and space (from local to global), criteria for discerning what is good for humanity and the planet and what is not, processes of deliberation, coordination and decision making.
There is no academic setting in France that brings together all the new knowledge, thoughts and emerging concepts on these issues and ensures their transmission to the new generations and to companies, which are major players in the successful systemic transition of our societies.
The Campus de la Transition wants to be this unique and innovative academic place that brings together teachers, researchers and actors in companies, public institutions and civil society around personalities internationally recognized for their expertise on these transition issues and in a place that is itself in a process of transition, the Forges estate in Seine-et-Marne, near Paris.
What need does the Transition Campus meet?
How to engage society without further delay in a global transition that takes into account the environment, social justice and economic development? What are the tools for developing desirable alternatives to the current rules of the game on an individual and collective scale?
The Campus de la Transition responds to this urgency and, first and foremost, to the aspirations of students from the grandes écoles and universities to be trained in these issues. By extension, it is aimed at professional and academic players who are increasingly aware of the need to act and transform themselves.
What is the value proposition?
The Campus de la Transition offers a place for experimentation, research and high-level higher education on the processes of transition to a new economy that respects and values ecosystems and natural balances, with the aim of enabling the vast majority of our fellow citizens to live a good life.
The Campus de la Transition is the first institution of this type created in France. It is inspired by similar initiatives such as Schumacher College (Totnes, Great Britain) or the Sustainability Institute (South Africa). It also benefits from an international network of universities, research centers and lecturer-researchers working on transition-related themes.
The Campus de la Transition is a non-profit association intended to be non-competitive and complementary to existing schools and institutions. It offers its teachings in the form of sessions, seminars, off-site courses and immersive training on the Campus site.
It offers a holistic approach to ecological and social transition. The “Great Transition” requires the mobilization of the different disciplines of human and social sciences (economics, management, philosophy, law, ethics, anthropology, epistemology…), physical and earth sciences and the concrete experiences of actors involved in the field.
To orient oneself and act in this new paradigm requires to be intellectually, technically and humanly equipped.
A radically new way of teaching. Disruptive, the Campus pedagogy solicits the personal involvement of the learner by allowing him or her to articulate “living and thinking” through immersion in a place that gives life to what he or she is learning. The Forges estate, where the Campus de la Transition is located, is in fact a place that the project engages in a dynamic of transition.
The Forges estate being itself in transition allows actors to experiment with concrete issues such as buildings-energy and sustainable mobility, agriculture and food systems, the inclusion in a bio-regional economy, social inclusion, simple and convivial life, ethics and governance.
Who is the Transition Campus for?
- Anyone who wishes to equip themselves to be fully involved in the transition in their commitment, whether professional, associative, etc.
- Students of the Grandes Ecoles and Master 2 in universities.
- Doctoral students, lecturer-researchers and trainers (France, Europe and international).
- Higher education academic institutions.
- Local governments, NGOs and companies seeking knowledge, methodology and know-how to initiate and carry out their transition process in stages and become actors of a sustainable world.
