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One of the two Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology inaugurates the College of Management of Technology
10 November 2004
Technology and entrepreneurship
The Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) - one of the two Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology - inaugurates its College of Management of Technology on Wednesday, November 10. This new division confirms a strategic EPFL axis. It catalyzes the Institutes's teaching and research linked to innovation, entrepreneurial management, and bringing new high technology products to market. At once practical and academic, the focus of the new college aims to advance the heart of EPFL's mission as a leader in high technology. The college's programs are developed in close collaboration with its many academic partners.
Principal concerns of the new college embrace both the broad and the specific. Broad issues include such topics as how the management of knowledge can increase business productivity, and how best to reduce the time between invention and bringing new products to market. Specific issues include such matters as how best to track patients through the course of their medical treatment, and how best to develop a new orphan drug into a commercial success.
Ground breaking developments in technology management may take the form of new concepts, new measurements, and new analytical tools that help link the development of new knowledge with its rapid application to marketable products and solutions. A core strategy in this effort at EPFL is to develop partnerships not only through transdisciplinary programs throughout the institute, but also through joint projects with a variety of industrial sponsors.
Technology management thus becomes a new area of expertise for engineers and scientists, blending a mastery of technology with practical knowledge in management, entrepreneurship, and social science. This new direction represents a major development in the EPFL over the past several years. The creation of the College of Management of Technology on October 1st is the concrete result of this development.
Located on the EPFL campus in the Odyssea building, the new college is situated at the interface of the Institute's principal fields of teaching and research, including architecture, basic science, and information technology. It also interacts with related operational units, such as the EPFL Science Park and its many start-up firms. As the college is based on the campus of a technology institute, it differs from others by positioning itself as a unique center of expertise. "Every academic program in the EPFL offers a potential field of application," explains the college's director, Professor Dominique Foray. “An excellent example would be the variety of intellectual property questions that emerge from research in the life sciences.”
The College is at once both a complement to and a partner with such schools as the HEC business school and the International Institute for Management Development (IMD) in Lausanne. Since the autumn of 2003, 1st through 4th year students in the human and social sciences have been able to follow a management-oriented curriculum. They have also had the option of taking a minor in technology management after their 3rd year. A proposed double masters program allows students who received a diploma or a master's from the EPFL to add a technology management dimension to their studies. Finally, in the graduate studies division, there are four executive masters programs, notably in e-governance and system logistics.
The College of Management of Technology currently supports five chairs of teaching and research as it looks forward to expanding in the future. This year, some 200 students are engaged in a course of management study in the liberal arts and social sciences, 40 are enrolled in the double masters program in technology management, and more than 100 professionals are pursuing a one-year executive master's degree.
journaliste:
Florence Luy
