The University of Angers creates a university foundation, the UA Foundation, bringing together several economic players.
En 2018, the University of Angers, the territory's 3rd largest employer, set up a foundation with the aim of catalysing interactions between the academic and socio-economic worlds of the territory. The UA Foundation wishes to bring together public, private and university partners in order to carry out joint projects that meet the needs of all these actors. Objectives ? To bring the needs of companies closer to the academic world and to the means at its disposal, with the watchword "audacity" and wishes to allow experimentation and innovation by its students. The knowledge produced will be shared and disseminated with the general public so that it benefits everyone, through conferences or exhibitions. But also to reinforce and strengthen existing links with the local and regional economic fabric; to prepare the setting up of new chairs; to increase the AU's readability on targeted actions and finally, to mobilize the alumni network.
The Foundation makes everyone's knowledge and know-how available for the benefit of innovation. Karine Desgages, from the Scania group, testifies to the company's need for expertise in the field of occupational health. « We wish to encourage projects around cognitive workload at work and to back up our knowledge with academic knowledge in order to assess the tenability of positions. We could support the project of a thesis student ".
It is through a system of donations, often private, that university foundations operate. In Angers, the first founding patrons are major groups such as Scania, Crédit Agricole and La Prévention Médicale - MACSF. In return for their funding, these companies benefit from attractive tax breaks.
For Sébastien Boussion, delegate at the foundation, this project "... demonstrates a willingness to open up in order to better understand the challenges of the world around us through research. ".
Four projects have already been put on the table by the Foundation. Representing a sum of 450,000 euros, these projects aim in particular to install a tele-medicine booth to ensure the training of future doctors. This booth will enable them to train on a tool that is gradually being developed in the world of medicine and anticipates the needs of research.
(Source : Angers Info, 26/06/2019)
More information : fondation[at]univ-angers.fr
