In 2018, the UPtoPARIS Management team began the project with the recruitment of the first 10 fellows. The year ended with the organisation of the 2nd call’s interviews and the selection of 10 new fellows, while the 3rd and final call for PhD projects was launched in order to collect and publish the positions available for applications.
The 2nd call laureates arrived early 2019, while the Team managed the opening of the 3rd call for applications. The last 10 fellows arrived late 2019.
The programme successfully attracted excellent young researchers through a multi-step selection process complying with the HRS4R principles, namely an open, transparent, fair and merit-based selection procedure. ESPCI submitted its endorsement letter last year for the HRS4R award and has now defined its action plan, which will be soon implemented in the school.
Regarding training and future employability, the Management team endeavored to give the best opportunities by offering a comprehensive doctoral education through a training programme composed of research and tailor-made soft skills courses. The project topics were carefully defined in order to address the requirements of the European/international business environment, to encourage career opportunities particularly outside the academic sector. Over a third of the UPtoPARIS fellows will undertake a secondment to an academic or industrial partner in France or abroad; the Management team will follow these projects and encourage the other PhD fellows and their supervisors to plan a secondment during the thesis.
By the end of 2019, 30 PhD fellows were recruited and started their thesis among ESPCI's 11 research units. They also started following their Career Development Training Programme (CDTP).
Following the arrival of all fellows on campus, the UPtoPARIS Management team set up an action plan for 2020, for trainings and events. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the two consecutive lockdowns in France, the planned events and trainings had to be adapted to the ongoing situation, which introduced new types of risk management in the project. Despite some delays in the schedule and other logistical issues, the team managed to organize all the activities as initially planned and even to integrate new ones in its action plan.
In July 2020, ESPCI’s Europe Department took a new responsibility regarding doctoral follow-up, namely the management of the administrative procedures of all ESPCI PhD students via ADUM. Originally, the UPtoPARIS PhD students were informed of the ADUM enrollment procedure upon their arrival in the school. Now, the Management team has access to the platform to carry out the procedures and is also able to manage other aspects, such as the follow-up of trainings or the organization of the thesis defense.
The most important deviation in the programme is the thesis extensions of several fellows, whose research was impacted by delays caused by the two lockdowns. Many PhD supervisors requested a thesis extension for their fellow; the Management team consequently identified the impact of the pandemic as a risk in the project.
