Mauritania has expressed needs in the field of higher education and research in order to initiate a transition towards a model of sustainable growth, which will reconcile the imperative of development, social progress and environmental protection. The existence of a prior partnership between the institutions participating in the project, in particular the INSA group and the École Supérieure Polytechnique (ESP), enabled the identification of cooperation needs in the field of higher education. Investing in human capital, particularly in industrial engineering training, seems essential to guarantee sustainable economic development and the creation of processing industries that generate jobs and added value in the fields of fishing, livestock farming and agriculture. They would also enable the country to respond to the mismatch between human resources and labor market needs, the dependence on raw materials, the vulnerability to external shocks and climate hazards and the informal sector issue thanks to the creation of SMEs and VSEs. Polytechnic Group (GP) trains middle managers and executives in the fields of engineering: Mining, Oil Gas, Electrical Engineering, Civil Engineering, Hydraulic Environment, Computer Networks and Telecommunications, Mechanical Engineering and Statistics and Data Engineering. GP wishes to create a “Higher Institute for the Professions of Quality, Logistics and Production (ISM-QLP)” and a new department of IE. INSA Group, IUT de Roanne and GP have decided to gather their skills to : • Create an IE training course covering Bachelor, Master and Phd • Strengthen national scientific research • Intensify economic partnerships through the creation of a valuation subsidiary, a foundation and a junior company at ESP • Launch an experiment of financial resources self-management with GP, before extending it to all higher education institutions in the country • Meet GP's educational equipment needs byconsidering gender equality, but also social equality in the recruitment and geographic location of training. For instance, the project will give birth to the construction of a boarding school for girls. French institutions will support GP in : • The accreditation procedures for IE training with the objective to create a double degree « ESP-INSA » in IE; • The creation of distance learning courses • Training professionalization and the creation of continuing vocational training (with or without a diploma); • The creation of a transversal research center that works on industrial engineering themes in connection with sustainable development and Industry 4.0; • The establishment and operational development of a R&D subsidiary and a foundation, for sales and sponsorship operations. The project will have a catalytic impact on the economy and will allow the transition from a system that is primarily based on the exploitation of raw materials to the creation of higher value-added processing industries. Based on the cooperation and the transfer of expertise, this project aims at promoting careers in industrial engineering, encouraging connections between companies producing goods and services and training a quality workforce. which meets the challenges of sustainable development, the digitization of the workforce and the labor market expectations. Finally, it aims at strengthening the already existing ties between INSA Group and Polytechnic Group (GP) by reinforcing the Mauritanian higher education system and by setting up international scientific and industrial partnerships.

The SECIF project consists in the extension of a first preliminary attempt led in partnership with IDDRI (“Institut for sustainable development and international relations) and related to climate change vulnerability issues for companies of industrial and services sectors. This collaboration enabled to identify precise needs into a couple of companies in terms of climate products and climate expertise. Moreover, feasibility of such a partnership has been validated using some concrete studies. They have been performed for two given sectors that are strongly sensitive to the climate adaptation issue: water and energy sectors. Several discussions with other companies and sectors (transport, all sort of services, building, urban planning …) have also shown that awareness of this different actors is actually going. A lot of work is still necessary to make companies more aware and more mature on their vulnerability and to be able to express a clear and concrete demand. In addition to this “consulting” work, research institutes must organise themselves and improve coordination in order to be able, if necessary, to respond to numerous requests and provide suitable information (data, various products and/or analysis methods). Several initiatives concerning model data distribution (regional or global scale data; raw or elaborated data) and their expertise have been launched (Drias and PRODIGUER projects for example). In the other side, several industrial requests on these vulnerability topics are often related to knowledge in the scope of basic research. Answering needs to provide an additional fundamental research and integrate multidisciplinarity aspects. Currently, at a national scale, an interface cell is missing to answer these various requests. The work that we propose in SECIF is then an exploratory step towards the implementation of climate services for industrial community. They will allow to better integrate climate data and knowledge in industrial adaptation strategies.

Context Architecture as an education needs to strengthen its knowledge-transfer infrastructure and breed an interactive, flexible learning environment to absorb ever-changing needs and objectives of the professional/research sides of the field of architecture, and find ways to steer the poles of the knowledge triangle (research/education/profession) to enhance the innovation potential of European educational and research system in terms of handling the transformation of the built environment.Architectural design education programs have the potential to steer the poles of the knowledge triangle within the two key fields of interaction at their core curricula. The final architectural design studio (FADS) and internship program are fields of interaction and transitional learning domains as thresholds that bridge academic education and the professional world. Thus, they not only represent the incorporation and culmination of the educational cycle but also the interaction and synthesis of all the accumulated experiences of the student.Objectives The objective of project was to first explore and then innovate the paths followed by the in-between mediation activities occurring in these two fields of interaction (methods, processes, and execution), in this way to enhance architectural education programs that are compatible with EU directives and 2011 EU modernisation agenda by respecting local and regional qualities.Partnershipe-FIADE have created a platform to share/experience/exchange architectural educational practices and academic expertise with the following organisations:TOBB University of Economics and Technology, Department of Architecture (TURKEY)The European Association of Architectural Education (BELGIUM)Eindhoven University of Technology, Department of the Built Environment (THE NETHERLANDS)University of Zagreb, The Faculty of Architecture (CROATIA)Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University, Department of Architecture (TURKEY)Institut National des Sciences Appliquées de Strasbourg (FRANCE)Universidade Lusofona, School of Architecture (PORTUGAL)Main Activities and ResultsThe project activities were managed by four work teams (FADS and internship research; project management; quality assessment and dissemination) and through 7 transnational project meetings. e-FIADE accommodated diverse formal and informal teaching, learning, training environments: 3 forum sessions on FADS and internship, one intensive architectural design studios (IADS), and one joint FADS among the partner HEIs, followed by the exhibition of the students’ works at the joint FADS at the EAAE Annual Conference 2019.Through these activities, it produced 4 seminal intellectual outputs to fulfil the project objectives:(O1-2) Mapping and analysis of existing diploma studio tracks and curricular internship models in the European departments of architecture based on the knowledge, skills, and competences defined by EU directive 2013/55.(O3-4) Alternative paths for diploma studios and curricular internships that respect the synthesis of the major challenges of our era affecting the profession and the emerging ‘hybrid, trans-disciplinary’ professional areas of the 21st century both in local and international context.The dissemination happened through 4 seminars entitled “e-FIADE Seminar: Thresholds in Architectural Education” organised in İstanbul, Ankara (Turkey), Strasbourg (France), and Zagreb (Croatia). The 4th seminar represented the project results to the representatives of many European schools of architecture at the EAAE Annual Conference. All the project materials, major lectures, and the intellectual outputs are published open-source at the project website. ImpactThe initial impacts measured through the verbal feedback from students, instructors and professionals attending the dissemination events showed that the mapping outputs are key reference documents that help academics understanding both where their existing studio practices and the mutual interaction between the formal and non-formal learning in their school curricula stand. Likewise, the alternative paths were appreciated as a valuable repertoire bringing together hybrid practices that involve people from the three sides of the knowledge triangle of the discipline. The research topics feed the current and future activities of the Education Academy working under the EAAE and the Turkish council working on access to the profession. The participating partners have started establishing the alternative studio models and the internship app produced by e-FIADE.Longer-term benefitse-FIADE results will have long-term impacts on research in architectural education that explore, discuss, and consider new and innovative perspectives on the crossings, interactions, and transformations of non-formal, informal learning, and formal learning within or prior to FADS and Internship and on the formation of the Charter on Architectural Education.