In January 2024, the Harris Institute published, on behalf of the French Ministry for Ecological Transition, the results of a survey carried out using the quota method among 2,037 people aged 18 and over, who were asked to rank their concerns among 18 possibilities. Climate change came second, behind buying power. 64% of women and 46% of men felt they were poorly informed about climate change. This finding demonstrates the relevance of the demand for training in climate change and ecological transition expressed by students as early as 2015, formalised at the student COP in April 2021, and which led to the Grenoble agreement “To accelerate the socio-ecological transition of Higher Education and Research”, quickly signed by around a hundred institutions.

In this context, Frédérique Vidal, the French Minister for Research, Higher Education and Innovation, wrote to Jean Jouzel in a letter dated 3 February 2020, asking him to chair a working group to “examine the issue of raising awareness and training all students in our higher education system in the major challenges of the ecological transition”. The topic is training, which means that it is part of the student’s standard curriculum and is a condition for awarding diplomas. The target is all students, whatever their speciality, in the natural sciences as well as in the social sciences and humanities: in large institutions, this involves several thousand students a year, even tens of thousands, which poses formidable organisational problems. Last, the subject is the ecological transition. For me, the important word is ecological, which derives from oikos, habitat. The question is “How do we get back to a habitable planet?” To answer this question, we need to “empower” the citizens, who all have a significant role to play if they wish it, whatever their job.

The Jouzel group, made up of around twenty people appointed by the Minister, submitted an initial scoping report on 3 July 2020 and a second, more detailed, on 16 February 2022¹ . In the meantime, a major event has taken place, with the promulgation of the Multiannual Research Programming Act² , and the associated amendment to the Education Code, which now stipulates that higher education establishments must provide training in the ecological transition and sustainable development. In theory, therefore, training in these issues is no longer an option, but an obligation for higher education establishments.

In the French system, the first students to leave higher education do so in the second year: the Jouzel group has therefore proposed that, around the second year, all students should benefit from basic training to ecological transition for the equivalent of 6 European credits (ECTS). In generalist universities, this can take place between the first and third years of a bachelor’s degree. These 6 credits comprise two components. A common core of knowledge and skills that would be provided to all students, whatever their disciplinary background, for 3 ECTS; and also for 3 ECTS, a partial modification of the existing discplinary courses in order to better address the links between the speciality and the ecological transition.

In the core of knowledge and skills, the issues of climate, biodiversity, resources, energy, etc. need to be tackled using a systems approach and adopting the viewpoints of the natural sciences and the humanities and social sciences. Restoring the planet’s habitability means changing our development trajectories: all aspects of social life need to be taken into account, as they can either act as brakes or levers to achieve the objective. Transferring knowledge is all about the work of a teacher: there are no major obstacles from this point of view, even if the necessary multi-disciplinary approach will require an organisational and training effort of the teachers. Many skills are needed to make the ecological transition a success: the ability to reason in a systemic way; understanding the concept of limits; orders of magnitude; the ability to co-construct diagnoses; acting responsibly; etc³ . In practical terms, this means providing students the intellectual tools and methods that will enable them to take action, whatever their future career may be. Acquiring the skills needed to take action is a huge challenge for most of our higher education institutions, which are mostly focused on the theoretical dimension of their disciplines. Hence there is a need for setting up long-term partnerships with NGOs, local authorities and businesses, in order to create opportunities for students to put themselves into situations that offer concrete problems to be solved. It is for this reason that the territorial dimension of training for the ecological transition is particularly emphasised in the report, in order to open up to other players, and even to mobilise them as trainers. It is also very important to recognise student involvement in groups within or outside the institution, associations, trade unions, political parties, etc. This recognition has been a legal requirement for some time now but it is still too little used, despite the fact that it meets the objective of developing students’ skills for change, which is the most difficult aspect of to implement in many universities and schools.

For the most motivated students, the interest and attractiveness of this knowledge and skills core will depend in part on what is offered later or in addition. The aim is therefore to develop a programme approach, i.e., to incorporate the ecological transition into all courses, and not just at bachelor level, by offering a coherent progression in the mastery of the issues involved in the ecological transition, and the concrete tools and approaches to make it happen. These transition courses should be seen as a key component of the institutions policies. Up until now, initiatives in this area have been the responsibility of individuals or small groups, who have found themselves legitimised by the Jouzel report, especially since Minister Sylvie Retailleau has taken on board a number of its conclusions. The higher education institutions now need to build a development strategy and put in place the necessary human resources: a vice-president, or equivalent, devoted to these issues, and project managers who can act as shock troops to bring about change.

The timeframe for getting organised is very tight, since all institutions are expected to offer students the knowledge and skills core in their first cycle from the start of the academic year in 2025. However, the employment situation in higher education is very tight, and both human and financial resources will have to be negotiated through the Contract for Objectives, Means and Performance. Beyond this quantitative dimension, there is a qualitative difficulty, that of multidisciplinarity. The fact is that all the skills needed to tackle the ecological transition effectively are rarely present together in a given establishment. It is therefore necessary to mobilise a large number of people from outside the academic departments, faculty or institution, and a simple method of exchanging skills, i.e., teacher-researchers between structures, is needed, but nothing has yet been done.

For the Jouzel group, students are allies, since they are the ones who set the process in motion and are still keeping up the pressure today. They are, or should be, agents for the transformation of training courses, which they can catalyse because of the motivation and, often, the high level of skills of a large proportion of them. It is therefore both desirable and effective to include students in the teaching teams responsible for changing course models.

As with any major educational change, there is a need to train university staff, primarily lecturers and researchers, but also administrative and technical colleagues who, through their day-to-day professional practices, concretely shape the ecological transformation of campuses. However, the training tools available to lecturers and researchers in particular are rarely used, for one simple reason: when you go on a training course, you have to ask colleagues who are already at 120, 130%, sometimes more, of their compulsory teaching load to replace you. There is a real problem of human resources that is nor resolved in the short term. If it is resolved in the future is unfortunately doubtful as far as the universities are concerned.

The world of higher education has the skills to design and disseminate a general culture—because that is what we’re talking about—in ecological transition. There is a historic opportunity to legitimise the University with a capital “U” in relation to this civilisational change that is upon us. Investing in lifelong education for the ecological transition, both inside and outside the university, is a unique opportunity to give social legitimacy to the University and, by the way, to recover money! Unfortunately, in this area, many institutions are not up to the task, and the “market” is already largely escaping them, to the benefit of private structures. One note of optimism, however: at the request of their institutions, 1,200 researchers and teacher-researchers have volunteered to give lectures and debates to 25,000 high level civil servants as part of a national training plan for the ecological transition that has been in place since the end of 2023 by the Ministry of Transformation and the Civil Service.