The FACULTY BOARD OF ENGINEERING beg leave to report to the University as follows:
1. The Department of Engineering currently runs a successful exchange programme with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Students from the Department spend their third year at MIT following a course which counts as Part IIA of the Engineering Tripos. The Department have found that returning students are able to make a positive contribution to the Engineering Tripos because of the broader experience they have gained. The Faculty Board, in response to comments by current and prospective students, now propose the extension of this scheme to mainland Europe.
2. In the first instance the Faculty Board have chosen Ecole Centrale Paris as an appropriate partner. Ecole Centrale Paris is one of the leading Grandes Ecoles of Engineering in France. Founded in 1829, it has a respected reputation for producing graduates who move on to successful careers in industry, banking, and academia. Since 1983, selected undergraduates from Ecole Centrale Paris have taken graduate-level courses at Cambridge in place of their final year of study in France. The most subscribed courses have been those which lead to the Certificate of Advanced Study in Mathematics or the Diploma in Computer Science. Some students have also successfully gained M.Phils. in courses related to Finance, Science, and Technology. The number of students from Ecole Centrale Paris studying at Cambridge has varied between one to ten students per academical year, with a total of over one hundred students in the past thirteen years. Thirteen of these students have continued on to acquire a doctorate from Cambridge.
3. It is expected that initially participation in this new exchange programme with the Department of Engineering will be limited to one or two students a year from each institution.
4. The exchange programme will be for one academical year and fees will be covered by HEFCE in accordance with the framework set out under the Socrates Erasmus scheme. For Cambridge students, once in France, the costs will be similar to those at Cambridge. All exchange students receive a grant through the Erasmus scheme of €420 per month. This is expected to cover all additional costs associated with the exchange.
5. The students will return to their home institutions to finish their degree course; students will not be permitted to undertake any further study in any way connected with their overseas university unless and until they do this.
6. The exchange programme will be advertised in the Lent Term of the students' second year. Students will apply, following a similar procedure to that used for the MIT exchange, and the successful applicants will leave Cambridge for their third year of study. They will take the 'Master Recherche 1' (MR1) (or a tailor-made course in fields where the MR1 is not given at Ecole Centrale Paris) instead of Part IIA of the Engineering Tripos. Initially, the exchange will be offered only for students who wish to study a broad set of papers chosen from: materials, structures, fluids, heat engineering, energy, aeronautical engineering, process engineering, and electrical engineering.
7. The students will be chosen based on both academic and linguistic ability. The academic selection process will be similar to that currently used for the MIT exchange. The linguistic selection will be managed by the Engineering Department Language Unit. Only students with an advanced level of ability in French will be allowed to participate in the exchange. Special preparatory support will be provided from Easter to June by the Engineering Department Language Unit. The Department will seek additional funding for this, but success in raising extra funding is not necessary for the programme to start. If appropriate funding becomes available, it is hoped that the students may be able to attend an intensive French language course before the start of the exchange at the Centre d'Approches Vivantes des Langues et des Médias (CAVILAM) in Vichy. Tuition in French as a foreign language will be provided by the Ecole Centrale Paris language department throughout the duration of the study period.
8. At the end of the year, the students will be graded in the French system and, provided they achieve a grade equivalent to a third-class honours pass, they will be deemed to have obtained honours in Part IIA of the Engineering Tripos. The students will then return and take the fourth year (Part IIB of the Tripos) in Cambridge.
9. Selection will be based on the internal selection criteria used for selecting students for the double-degree or Master's degree networks. Students will be required to achieve a standard in English that is acceptable to the Department of Engineering and that meets the University's requirements as administered for Erasmus students generally by the Cambridge International Office. Students will arrive in Cambridge after completing the first year at Ecole Centrale Paris and return to take the third (final) year area of specialization.
10. It is expected that they will join the Colleges that the Cambridge exchange students left in order to go to Ecole Centrale Paris. (Where this is impractical, they will be placed in Colleges by the Cambridge International Office.)
11. The students will be matriculated by the University and will take Part IIA of the Engineering Tripos, following exactly the same rules as apply to Cambridge students. They will sit all the normal Part IIA examinations and although they will not be candidates for honours, the class that they would have achieved will be made known to both the students and the administration at Ecole Centrale Paris.
12. The Faculty Board have made arrangements to inspect the Ecole Centrale Paris syllabuses and check that they will be appropriate for Cambridge students. The Heads of the final year areas of concentration and appropriate Course Directors at Ecole Centrale Paris will similarly check the Cambridge syllabuses to ensure that they are appropriate and relevant for the French students' area of specialization on return to Ecole Centrale Paris. Both groups of students will be required to sign a formal learning agreement that specifies the courses that they will take.
13. The Faculty Board propose that there should be an initial contractual agreement to run the exchange for three years, with reviews (with the ability to revise or curtail the exchange activity on either side) midway through the first and third years. The Board expect that the exchange activity will be developed and improved over a period of several years.
14. The Senior Tutors' Standing Committee on Education and the Senior Tutors' Committee have both expressed their support for the proposed exchange between Ecole Centrale Paris and the Department of Engineering. The School of Technology have given their support to the proposal and have agreed to underwrite the exchange.
15. To allow the exchange programme to take place as proposed above, the regulations to the examination for the Engineering Tripos will require a small amendment.
16. The Faculty Board accordingly recommend:
That, with effect from 1 October 2008, Regulation 23 for the Engineering Tripos be amended so as to read:
23. A candidate who, under arrangements approved by the Faculty Board of Engineering, has spent not less than three terms studying at an institution listed in the Schedule to these regulations and who has been certified by the head of that institution, after consultation with the Chairman of Examiners for Part IIA of the Engineering Tripos, to have studied diligently during that period, shall be deemed thereby to have obtained honours in Part IIA of the Engineering Tripos. A list containing the names of persons so qualified shall be certified by the Chairman of the Faculty Board of Engineering and published in the Reporter.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Ecole Centrale Paris
| 11 December 2007 | A. L. GREER (Chairman) | K. GLOVER | T. W. H. MINSHALL |
| H. BABINSKY | E. A. HALL | R. W. PRAGER | |
| C. Y. BARLOW | S. HOCHGREB | W. RIEUTORT-LOUIS | |
| D. A. CARDWELL | A. HOPPER | S. A. SCOTT | |
| R. A. FENNER | M.-H. IQBAL | H. R. SHERCLIFF | |
| N. A. FLECK | N. G. KINGSBURY | I. H. WHITE | |
| A. J. FLEWITT | J. LASENBY | J. A. WILLIAMS | |
| L. F. GLADDEN | W. I. MILNE |
The General Board endorse the proposals in this Report.
| 9 January 2008 | ALISON RICHARD, Vice-Chancellor |