Gaston Berger Center

The Gaston Berger Centre at INSA Centre Val de Loire is part of the efforts by INSA Group and its Foundation to develop the INSA model of training engineers and landscape designers who are humanists. Diversity, excellence, open-mindedness, humanities and citizenship are the core values in this model.

The INSA engineer or landscape designer boasts not only excellent scientific and technical abilities, but also skills in the human and social sciences and a keen eye on the future. INSA engineers are capable of understanding the challenges facing society, of playing their part in today's world, and of anticipating and adapting to future developments.

Context

In 2017, the INSA Group decided to boost its brand and its national and international standing by drawing on its rich assets, specific features and the strength of its shared model. It therefore created three Group entities in 2018: the INSA Foundation, OPENINSA and the IGB (Institut Gaston Berger).

The role of the IGB is to strengthen the identity of the INSA Group by promoting, disseminating and developing its creative model based on strong social and humanist values, advocating openness to diversity in all its forms, and educating engineers, architects and landscape designers who are open to the world, responsible and civic-minded.

The IGB's ambitions are to:

  • ensure that the INSA model is taken into account in the Group's political and strategic positioning,

  • unite local, national and international ecosystems around the INSA values,

  • provide a forward-looking vision and methodology,

  • create a collective dynamic,

  • design and deploy joint programmes for greater impact.

To achieve these objectives, the Group decided that each INSA would create an internal entity called the Centre Gaston Berger (CGB), with the IGB being responsible for supporting its development. This is the framework within which the CGB Centre Val de Loire operates, as an essential relay and local operator for the deployment and implementation of strategic actions and programmes defined at national level by the IGB and INSA Group.

The Gaston Berger Centre was inaugurated on 31 January 2019 to mark the "5th anniversary of INSA Centre Val de Loire" and was the subject of a motion of constitution presented to the Board of Directors on 11 March 2020.

Mission

The mission of the Centre Gaston Berger Centre Val de Loire is to :

  • mobilise the entire school, its ecosystem and stakeholders around the development of the INSA model and values

  • promote and disseminate a forward-looking culture
  • foster and support diversity of all kinds

  • promote the education of engineers, landscape architects and researchers who are open to others and to their differences, and aware of their social and societal responsibilities

  • strengthen the school's local ties and influence in its local ecosystem

  • implement national programmes locally

Fields of action

The Gaston Berger Centre is involved in common fields of action defined by the INSA Group, such as:

  • Diversity and equal opportunities
    The CGB works locally to promote and implement the Group's policy on social, territorial and academic openness, disability, gender equality and the fight against all forms of discrimination and violence.
  • Transversality and interculturality
    The CGB initiates, designs, co-constructs, supports or accompanies all forms of action to decompartmentalise the engineering sciences, humanities, economics and social sciences, arts, sports and other disciplinary fields (architecture, design, management, political science, etc.) in order to strengthen students' transdisciplinary, interdisciplinary, multicultural and intercultural learning.
  • Technical humanism and responsibility
    The CGB initiates, designs, co-constructs, supports or accompanies all forms of action to promote links between science, technology and society and enable students to place science and technology in their historical and political context, to appreciate the implications and consequences of the engineer's action, and to grasp the issues of social responsibility, sustainable development, ethics and deontology.

The Gaston Berger Centre may also be commissioned by the management of INSA Centre Val de Loire to conduct other specific local action in other areas.

Program

In its areas of activity, the CGB develops programmes aimed at secondary school pupils, students and doctoral candidates, teachers and researchers, and the INSA community as a whole.

The CGB designs its programme in line with local strategic guidelines and those of the INSA Group. It rolls out the IGB's programmes within its territory, and incorporates the action plans resulting from the INSA Group's forward-looking approach and the results produced by the IGB's social observatory. It steers and adapts to the local context the action carried out by the IGB as part of the national alliances forged by the INSA Foundation with partners working on major social causes (NGOs, associations, etc.).

The CGB will be able to implement the programmes developed with the local Foundation funded by its donors and sponsors, once that Foundation has been set up. CGB programmes can take on a wide variety of formats, including:

  • incentives, guidance, scientific mediation and tutoring for secondary school students,

  • support measures to help vulnerable students succeed

  • initiatives to raise awareness of social responsibility and issues,

  • solidarity and humanitarian actions by students and staff,

  • co-designing and testing new training modules

  • action research in the human and social sciences linked to the fields of action

  • leading forward-looking initiatives within the school

LINK with THE INSA Centre Val de Loire FOUNDATION

The local Foundation will be a key partner of the Gaston Berger Centre and they will be closely linked in their development. The Gaston Berger Centre's coordinators are invited to attend meetings of the local Foundation's Strategic Steering Committee as and when required. They take part in its strategic meetings and ensure that the INSA values are respected in the partnership relations entered into with the founders and sponsors of the Foundation.

The Gaston Berger Centre and local Foundation will work together to establish ways of cooperating that will enable smooth interfacing and efficient, productive collaborative working. Together, they will design programmes that will be proposed to donors and sponsors in order to obtain their financial support. They will establish the methods and rules for managing financial flows between the local Foundation and INSA/CGB.

Contacts

 Lucie BAUDOU
Teacher of Economics and Management, Blois Campus 
lucie.baudou@insa-cvl.fr

Cécile PREVOST
Head of Partnerships
cecile.prevost@insa-cvl.fr