Launch of the European doctoral programme in energy and environment, EDENE, on 21 October 2021...Successful take-off!

The kick-off meeting of the European doctoral programme in energy and environment -H2020 MSCA-Cofund EDENE, led by the UPPA Centre for Doctoral Studies, was held on 21 October 2021 at the Presidency amphitheatre on the Pau campus. This morning meeting allowed all the stakeholders of the project to meet and to set up the bases of the programme. About fifty people (including about 15 from a distance) participated in this event.

The Marie SkÅ‚odowska-Curie COFUND EDENE programme, with a total duration of 5 years and a total budget of 4.6 M€ (of which 2.4 M€ is financed by the European Commission), aims to train 3 classes of 10 doctoral students each, on research topics related to energy and the environment. The first call for applications for CALL#1 ended on 13 April 2021 and after a very thorough selection process, 10 winners were able to start their thesis in September at UPPA.

The Vice-Presidents for Research and Partnership and Innovation, Mrs Isabelle BARAILLE and Mr Christophe DERAIL, as well as the Director of the SEA doctoral school, Mrs Sophie MERCIER, underlined the importance of such a programme in the global and doctoral policies of UPPA, in close connection with the research units and the E2S UPPA project and in collaboration with the industrial partners TotalEnergies, Enedis, Naldéo, Téréga, the SATT and the Pôle Avénia.

Ms Alexandra G. PEDERSEN, Project Officer in charge of the monitoring of the project at the European Commission, presented the rules of the European Commission that will be respected in the framework of the programme.

The speakers Mr. Konstantin SIPOS, General Manager of the RESCOLL manufacturing company, and Mr. Laurent BILLON, coordinator of the European eSCALED programme at UPPA, IPREM, showed the importance of these European programmes which allow, among other things, an increased international visibility, networking opportunities and a high level of research through first class scientific collaborations.

Mr. Gilles CARBOU, programme coordinator, and Ms. Elisabeth TINSEAU, programme manager, went over the functioning of the programme as a whole, the different tasks and the planned timetable, and Ms. Claire HARAÏ presented the activities of the UPPA Welcome Desk.

Finally, Mrs Sophie Mercier congratulated, on behalf of all the speakers, the 10 international laureates for their success in joining the COFUND EDENE project. They each presented their research topic:

  • Giovana Miti Aibara Paschoal,
  • Sonia Ait Hamouda,
  • Aimene Gouasmi,
  • Aleksandra Izdebska,
  • Ibtissem Lannabi,
  • Luanna Moura,
  • Alba Rodriguez,
  • Sofia Roucan,
  • Mohamed Rozki,
  • Andrew Wilson (remote).

The EDENE programme management team and the Centre for Doctoral Studies would like to thank all the speakers and participants of this meeting for contributing to its success.