SAFRAN: partnering Chinese universities

31.10.2007

Since 2002, SAFRAN has been developing a partnership with Chinese universities in the fields of research and training. Two doctorate students have just been rewarded for their work. The Group is also providing its support for the opening of a new aeronautical school in Tianjin.

Prix SAFRAN - © DR /SAFRAN

On 18 September 2007, at the Beijing air show, the Group awarded for the fifth year running its SAFRAN Prize. This prize rewards the best two theses produced in Chinese universities on subjects of interest to the Group. This year, there were two winners. The first prize went to Doctor Li Zhiping of the Beijing aeronautics and astronautics university (prize of 5000 euros), with the second prize, to the value of 2000 euros, being awarded to Dr. Lu Xingen of the Polytechnic University of North-West Xian. Their theses were selected by a jury composed of both French and Chinese adjudicators, in fields concerning compressor aerodynamics, and likely to be of great use in the design of aircraft engines.

Students today, partners tomorrow

The SAFRAN Prize was launched in 2002, to coincide with a training program for Chinese engineers in France at the Lyons Ecole Centrale (School of Engineering) in partnership with the top Chinese universities. One of the goals of this program is to make tomorrow’s engineers in China familiar with the Group, its products and the know-how of its companies. It also serves as a means of recruiting some of these Chinese engineers, “who are extremely competent and who are certain, in years to come, to occupy important posts,” says François Courtot, SAFRAN Senior

Vice-President, International Development. These students are likely to take up employment with French or Chinese companies in China. “They will be our partners or will work with our suppliers,” François Courtot goes on to say. “We shall be able to recruit them for our factories, in the framework of our development in China. Since they will already be familiar with our products, this will ease their integration.”

A new school at Tianjin since September

Tianjin - © DR /SAFRAN

This prize is just one of many actions being undertaken by the Group, which is going still further with its investments in higher education in China. “The other aspect of our action involves the training of Chinese engineers in French schools located in France and in China,” Mr. Courtot continues. “Following on from the partnership with the Ecole Centrale de Lyon and the Chinese universities, we have supported the Beijing School of Engineering and are now working with Thales and EADS on the creation of a new school for aeronautical engineers at Tianjin, which received its first student intake on September 1, this year,” adds François Courtot. This school of aeronautics at Tianjin is on the site of the future assembly hall for the Airbus A320. It has received the support, in France, of the Ministry of National Education, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the DGAC and the GEA (the grouping of French aeronautical schools, comprising ENAC, ENSMA and ISAE). On the Chinese side, the Ministry of Education, the municipal government of Tianjin, the Civil Aviation University of China (CAUC), Tianjin, and three aeronautical universities (Beijing, Xian and Nanjing) have all lent their support to the new school.

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