Your voice of reason at Paris-Saclay
Fabian M. Suchanek 2017-04-28, terms of use
Fortunately, all of these problems have now come to an end. In a bold move, the University Paris-Sud has decided to become “Paris-Saclay” itself. Thus, Paris-Sud would be Paris-Saclay. This has several advantages:
We have talked to Dr. Naibaf of Télécom ParisTech about the new situation. He explains:
We can only welcome the re-orientation of Paris-Saclay! A university with 20 members was anyway in no way manageable. I do not know who had this idea anyway. A university with a single member, in contrast, can be very successful. I don't know why they did not directly go for this route.Dr. Naibaf also concedes the publicity effect of the move:
In order to promote our own school in the context of the new campus, we once decided to “contribute the digital dimension to Paris-Saclay”. This was, admittedly, quite unimaginative.Paris-Sud, in contrast, has now decided to “contribute Paris-Saclay to Paris-Saclay”. Now that’s something really creative!
The renaming of Paris-Sud to Paris-Saclay is not yet final. It has to be approved by all members of the new Paris-Saclay University. Yet, given that the number of members is much smaller now (one), this may be only a formality.
This step will mean that Télécom ParisTech will be excluded from Paris-Saclay for good. This is, however, not a problem. The school is already planning to acquire the newly available name “Paris-Sud”. This would immediately catapult it to position 179 in the Times Higher Education Ranking, and endow it with several Fields Medal winners.