The genesis of the handbook
The ecological and social transition is an unprecedented challenge for current and future generations. Preserving our planet and living things in all their forms imposes a new paradigm: a radically different way of thinking about the world and acting accordingly.
However, during the year 2019, several initiatives highlighted the inadequacy of the higher education approach to teaching on ecological and social transition matters. By signing the petition proposed by The Shift Project, civil society expressed this conviction. For their part, many students joined the Manifesto for an ecological awakening.
In the summer of 2019, the Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation (MESRI) requested the Campus de la Transition to produce a white paper on transition training in higher education.
Immediately, a group of more than 70 teacher-researchers and students from all disciplines, as well as experts and business players, were formed for the first time on this topic, ready to take up this challenge under the leadership of the Campus de la Transition. The “FORTES” collective was born to promote “Training for Ecological and Social Transition in Higher Education”.
The members of the collective come from a wide variety of disciplinary fields (environment, health, life sciences, biological, physics, economy, law, management, philosophy, sociology, political science).
Indeed, the “Great Transition” does not simply concern the environment or the economy, as it is customary to think, but it addresses the very heart of our representations, and therefore all fields of knowledge.
In one year of collaborative work, 13 working groups have developed the flesh of a common frame to move forward. Together, they gave birth to the Great Transition Handbook.
