The Campus Région du Numérique (Regional Digital Campus) opened its doors in 2021 in an old building rehabilitated in a sustainable way on a wooded 11-hectare site in the west part of Lyon (France). This innovative project comprises schools, training organisations, a digital creation centre for 12-18 year-olds, businesses, digital transformation stakeholders, clusters. Its DNA is to spearhead innovation in the region Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and promote open and inclusive educational methods.
Regional
France
Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Region
It addresses urban-rural linkages
It refers to a physical transformation of the built environment (hard investment)
No
No
Yes
As a representative of an organisation
Name of the organisation(s): Région Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Type of organisation: Public authority (European/national/regional/local) First name of representative: Laurent Last name of representative: Wauquiez Gender: Male Nationality: France Function: President of the Regional Council Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: 101, cours Charlemagne Town: Lyon Postal code: 69269 Country: France Direct Tel:+33 6 70 82 71 93 E-mail:cedric.vernet@auvergnerhonealpes.fr Website:https://campusnumerique.auvergnerhonealpes.fr/
Through a service offering which can be accessed on the Charbonnières-les-Bains site (west part of Lyon) and throughout the region, the Campus Région du Numérique pursues five key objectives:
• To offer training to meet current and future business needs,
• To remedy the lack of skilled workforce in the digital sector,
• To support business leaders and employees in discovering and integrating new technologies,
• To help businesses improve their performance by integrating innovative tools and methods,
• To reduce the digital divide at regional level.
The initiative is part of a global employment and innovation approach in the region, serving economic, industrial and environmental transitions.
The Campus in figures: 9 schools, 750 students, 17 training programmes in Charbonnières-Les-Bains, and also a network of approved training programmes in the region with over 150 programmes and more than 3,500 students in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes.
The schools on the Campus offer an innovative educational approach, in particular:
- 42 Lyon Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes which offers a unique inclusive educational model, open to all, without any diploma requirement: instead of teachers and lessons, a peer-to-peer learning format. This original and free-of-charge formula, which achieves 100% employability at the end of the programme, is seeing enrolments boom, with 2022 showing a 30% rise over 2021.
- TUMO Lyon, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes: this extracurricular digital creation centre, which opened its doors on 26 January 2022, gives 12-18-year-olds access to new creative digital technologies and helps cultivate their creativity and their talents alongside professional experts in an ideal natural setting. With its educational value, the centre’s capacity is set to treble, allowing more than 1,500 young people in the region to benefit from it.
- Web designer programmes 100% in French sign language for deaf and hearing-impaired people.
Innovation
Training
Sustainability
Inclusion
Accessibility
In line with the European Green Deal, consuming better and less by the implementation of Green IT is a priority objective of this Campus on its wooded and eco-responsible 11-hectare site in the west of Lyon. The environment thus lies at the very heart of the Campus project which is based in the rehabilitated former Regional Council building:
• Solar energy conversion from photovoltaic panels.
• Maximum access to natural light and its benefits by means of, for example, the creation of an atrium in the “Lab” building, and filtering the light on the most exposed elevations.
• A strong and continuous connection with nature by means of large openings extending into generous outdoor space.
• Re-use of materials and construction scrap.
• Development of site accessibility by soft mobility to link the Campus to regional railway stations, green car parks with over 200 cycle spaces, charging points for electric vehicles and a self-service electric vehicle station with two cars.
• Contribution to biodiversity by the installation of beehives.
In April 2022, just over a year since the Campus opened, the quality of the design and construction of its buildings was acknowledged by the award of the “R2S” (Ready2Services) label and the maximum score of 3 stars—a first for a public body in France.
This label is a recognition of the Campus’ ambition to serve digital, and the efforts made in the construction phase and the development of innovative digital services for visitors, residents and learners.
The label also confirms the eco-responsible nature of the Campus’ unique infrastructure: equipment and resources are shared, helping avoid the duplication of networks and sensors with a hefty environmental footprint.
The Campus is:
• An innovative and eco-responsible place within a wooded 11-hectare site.
• A 10,000 m² fully equipped infrastructure for videoconferencing and collaborative working, plus meeting and work rooms, an exhibition space, a lecture room, etc.
• Interactions of students and learners of the different schools with businesses of the Campus Smart Factory, digital transformation stakeholders, clusters, and visitors.
• Events: conferences, professional fairs, social events, hackathons, job forums, Open Door days.
• Everything on site: catering (food trucks, smart refrigerator, etc.), accessibility (soft mobility), shops nearby, etc.
It is a “quiet” campus. The exterior space and landscaping give priority to pedestrians and soft mobility, with cars required to park at the site entrance. As on major American campuses, students and professionals circulate on pedestrian ways in a large landscaped park.
Every aspect of the project bears the mark of digital and new technologies, from the general organisation of the Campus and its spaces through to... the aesthetics!
From the glazed “Cloud”, central building which has a pivotal role similar to that of the nodes in IT networks, to the aesthetics of the high-tech roof, via the interior lighting, sunshields reminiscent of computer chips circuits, and even the façade of the security cabin at the site entrance, built with perforated sheet metal panels incorporating a motif inspired by binary code... this is where digital takes shape and finds its embodiment.
The furniture can be configured in various ways allowing for modularity in the spaces, which have minimal partitioning.
They are thus open and flexible by design. Connecting to all levels, the Cloud building lies alongside and above the event and relaxation areas. From the architectural viewpoint, the introduction of glazing in the vertical circulation spaces allows natural light to flood through the entire building.
As accessibility is one of the building’s architectural design priorities, accessible main paths around the campus and disabled parking spaces close to all the buildings have been provided in the development of the Campus.
The interior design likewise guarantees access for everyone.
Inclusion is also a priority in the very organisation of the training:
- 42 Lyon Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes offers a unique free-of-charge inclusive educational model for IT training: instead of teachers and lessons, a peer-to-peer learning format. In the selection process called “Piscines” (which is a month-long coding boot camp), candidates are accepted purely on their merits. The school gives everyone an opportunity by stressing inclusion, creativity and excellence.
- TUMO Lyon, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes is an extracurricular digital creation centre, which gives 12-18 year-olds access to new creative digital technologies and helps develop their creativity and their talents alongside professional experts. Today, the centre welcomes 500 young people to the TUMO pathway in 4 extracurricular timeslots. TUMO is co-financed by the regional operational programme ERFD-ESF.
- The Campus Région du numérique also offers web designer training 100% in French sign language (LSF) for deaf and hearing-impaired people. This training programme is in line with the recent package to improve labour market outcomes of persons with disabilities, flagship initiative of the European strategy 2021-2030 for the rights of persons with disabilities.
The Campus Région du numérique is an action programme and a regional economic competitiveness and development tool, initiated and supported by the Regional Council and serving all its policies.
Its objective is to support businesses in their major transitions and transformations (economic, industrial, environmental, energy, human resources, innovation and transfer of technologies...) by leveraging of digital and via its 3 main components of Training, Transformation and Innovation both on the Charbonnières-les-Bains site and throughout the region. Through its Training component, it encourages young men and women to acquire digital skills which will help them quickly enter the job market. The Campus thus contributes to respond to the skills shortage in the digital sector, which is one of the objectives of the European digital compass for 2030.
It also has a role in addressing the Region’s challenges of relocation, sovereignty, digitalisation, decarbonisation, regional preference and attractiveness of the territory, by a clear and coherent service offer linked to the existing dense regional ecosystem.
The Charbonnières-les-Bains site is also the head of a network with an offering rolled out over the entire regional territory, via partners and a collective, which it coordinates, in the form of “Training”, “Transformation” and “Innovation” communities. It is a hub entry point for those questioning their transformation by digital, and works as an ecosystem.
In its endeavour to boost digital skills, create jobs, integrate young people and improve the attractiveness of a peri-urban territory, the Region firmly decided to rehabilitate old premises on the outskirts of Lyon rather than create new ones right in the town centre; the Campus Région du Numérique is a tool which benefits society as a whole.
The Campus Région du Numérique is an initiative of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Regional Council and features in its 2017-2021 strategic digital roadmap. The project to convert the Regional Council’s old headquarters was awarded to architects Wilmotte and Associates. The building work was awarded to a regional contractor: Bouygues Bâtiment Sud-Est, following a tender process launched in 2018. 90% of the contractors involved in the construction and fitting-out of the Campus come from the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region.
The Campus Région du Numérique involves the region’s entire digital ecosystem, whether through the Charbonnières-les-Bains project or the network in the territory.
In particular, in Charbonnières-les Bains, the Campus is home to clusters in order to reach the entire regional territory: Digital League, Polymeris, CIMES and also the ENE (French acronym for “digital business space”) which offer a digital transformation support service to all businesses in the region. They also include the Minalogic cluster which is the coordinator of the Minasmart EDIH supported by the European programme Digital Europe.
Open to the outside and popular with visitors, the Campus offers spaces available to hire for events and seminars. They are modular and designed to hold conferences, job dating events, hackathons, team-building workshops, etc. As such, the Campus is perfectly integrated in the local economic ecosystem which, in a few short months, has made it an absolutely key location. It also welcomes large numbers of visitor groups including partners from Europe and beyond. For example, on 20 March 2023, it will welcome representatives of the Four Motors for Europe, a historic cooperation between Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, Lombardy, Catalonia and Baden-Württemberg.
Spearheading the regional policy on innovation, the Campus has announced in its 2023 roadmap, the objective of expanding its network and positioning itself on European projects.
The Campus brings together on its Charbonnières-les-Bains site and in its network throughout the territory of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes a variety of representatives of the regional ecosystem: schools and training bodies, industrial consortia, digital transformation stakeholders, businesses which interact daily via joint projects and events focussing on digital and industrial topics.
By way of example, a hackathon for the schools of the Campus and businesses was held on the Charbonnières-les-Bains site in October 2020 on the topic of Green IT with lectures translated into French sign language. 190 people attended the event.
The Campus thus fosters synergies and contacts between businesses and schools, etc., and promotes the sector to young people wishing to develop skills and looking for guidance, via the presence of the TUMO digital creation centre.
The vocation of the Campus is to address the challenges of digital by 3 main components:
- a multi-school training campus,
- a platform to support regional businesses in their digital transformation,
- and a research and innovation factory.
The areas of intervention of the Campus are as follows:
• Eco-design of digital products and digital sobriety
• Energy and environmental performance
• Product design and digitalisation of industrial processes
• Additive manufacturing, surface texturation and characterisation
• Information system and digital continuity
• IoT, connectivity and industrial 5G
• Robotics and cobotics
• Immersive, virtual and augmented reality
• Big Data and artificial intelligence
• Digital twin and simulation tools
• Cloud and cybersecurity
• alongside many other subjects too!
The Campus is the first public body in France to gain the maximum of 3 stars under the R2S label and is in top position in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes for all categories combined. The 3-star R2S label awarded in April 2022 is an acknowledgement of the Campus’ ambition in relation to digital, and the effort made in the building phase on the basis of the following criteria:
• Connectivity and network architecture: providing good coverage throughout the building, quick, secure and redundant internet access. A single network shared by residents facilitates its security and maintenance.
• Digital security: keeping systems secure and protecting data with several levels of protection.
• Equipment and interfaces: connecting equipment, networks and services: BMS (Building Management System) and CTM (Centralised Technical Management).
• Responsible management: providing good project management with competent partners.
• The services offered: use of the connectivity and communication capacity to develop innovative services for learners, residents and visitors: a dedicated mobile application as a building guide, a network of dynamic screens providing information, automated management of rooms and their partitioning, a powerful wifi system and 5G indoor coverage, in particular for the state-of-the-art equipment in the Campus Smart Factory.
• Implementation of green IT: consume better and consume less.
Bringing together, on one and the same site, a mix of people from different backgrounds (training, research and innovation, industry, etc.) aligned around the challenges of digital, through three priorities (Training, Transformation and Innovation), with a decentralised network, is a first for the territory of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes. This integrated approach and this mode of governance which involves the regional authority and its economic ecosystem around a shared campus add to its innovative character.
Every year, the Campus Région du numérique approves training programmes provided on the Charbonnières-les-Bains site and throughout the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Region.
These programmes are selected following calls for expressions of interest launched by the Region with a view to establishing the “Training” component of the Campus. Over 150 training programmes have now been approved on the Charbonnières-les-Bains site and throughout the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Region.
The approval testifies to the Region’s recognition of initiatives which meet the objectives pursued by the Campus generally: employability, digital culture, educational innovation, digital transformation of organisations, industry of the future, transfer of technologies, development of entrepreneurial spirit and economic growth of businesses. The approved programmes are part of a network and benefit from the Region’s leveraging effect and structured facilitation.
The following are the approval criteria:
• must respond to the regional economy’s needs in terms of skills,
• proven and verifiable employability, i.e. over 80% after 6 months or continuing with studies at a higher level and leading to qualifications,
• a broad target audience both in sociological terms and with regard to the mix and inclusion of women in these sectors and skills,
• an innovative and adaptable methodology,
• a viable economic model.
In addition, the TUMO Centre is now setting up TUMO BOXES which are wirelessly connected to the TUMO Centre to be deployed in the region. This initiative allows every territory to propose digital awareness-raising actions for 12-18 year-olds who can then train at the TUMO Centre. A TUMO BOX is mobile and easy to install in any town or village.
The training programme selection methodology, the approval criteria and the economic sustainability conditions are all replicable and transferable elements.
The Campus Région du numérique is a flagship project of the Regional Council. From its design phase, it was built with the objective of achieving the 3-star R2S (Ready2Services) label. It defines the requirements for a connected and communicating building, and describes the technical and organisational means to make it a service platform.
The Campus responds to the transformation of uses, i.e. users’ expectations in terms of services, and is thus among the community of stakeholders committed to digital in the service of humans by:
- Offering optimum connectivity, in particular with regard to wiring and wifi, GSM and 5G indoor coverage on the Campus which is vital for the use of collaborative tools, email, video, etc.
- Making systems secure to cope with the increase and force of cyberattacks. Multiple levels, equipment and software keep the Campus network secure.
- Increasing numbers of connected things: thermostats, voice interface, temperature and air quality sensors, refrigerator, etc.
- Connecting equipment, networks and services: this involves BMS (Building Management System) and CTM (Centralised Technical Management).
- Helping with the environmental transition: more responsible energy, energy consumption tracking, PEP (Product Environmental Profile) sheets. More responsible consumption.
There is a causality between digital services and the well-being of occupants. The objective is thus to provide more services and to increase the attractiveness of the Campus by taking on board new forms of working. This is done by providing service continuity based on equipment redundancy and resilience.
Moreover, in all the development phases of the Campus Région du Numérique project (renovation of the building, selection of training programmes, launch of activities), stakeholders from the economic and digital ecosystem in the region have been consulted.
The Campus Région du numérique is a tool serving the Region’s major plans: Regional plan for economic development, innovation and internationalisation (SRDEII), Regional plan for higher education, research and innovation (SRESRI). As such, it aims to:
- Accelerate digitalisation and decarbonisation of businesses
- Guide and train young people for sectors currently recruiting and the sectors of tomorrow
- Make Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes the region of engineers, technicians and scientists
- Relocate the production of strategic goods and services, relying on industry for this
- Support the development of an innovative regional ecosystem
The objectives of the Campus, which sees itself as a digital accelerator, also fit with the ambitions of the Digital Decade 2030 to achieve Europe’s digital transformation by 2030 and strengthen its strategic autonomy. Thus, the actions developed on the Campus site help to achieve targets of the European Digital Compass: a population with digital skills and ICT specialists professionals, secure and sustainable digital infrastructures, and the acceleration of digital transformation of businesses. Finally, the “Training” component could be promoted in the context of the European Year of Skills.
Over and above the digital transition, the Campus is also aligned with the objectives of the green transition within the Green Deal. Indeed, the Campus has placed the environment at the heart of the project in terms of its location, building design and the attention given to green IT.
Finally, it is a clear illustration of the key challenge of skills serving economic development and maintenance/attraction of talents in our regions, as underlined in the recent communication by the European Commission “Harnessing Talent in Europe: a new boost for EU Regions”.
The Campus Région du numérique opened its doors on 4 January 2021, when we were still in the grip of the pandemic. It gradually rolled out its activity from spring with the finalisation of the Factory equipment (around 20% still to be provided by the consortia) and easing of restrictions, and really got going at the start of the academic year in 2021 when the situation returned almost to normal. However, some activities had started in autumn 2020: the arrival of the 42 Lyon Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes school and consortia actions upstream.
The Campus has received a large number of visitors:
• 3,456 visitors at 32 events with over 50 attendees, 4,932 people over the 101 meetings, seminars, visits and events held on the Campus.
• 384 business visits to the Factory, with 577 of the visitors being at manager and director level.
With regard specifically to the Training component, the Campus has 9 schools, 750 students and 17 training programmes on site, plus a network of over 150 training programmes and over 3,500 students in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes.
Regarding the schools with an innovative educational approach:
- 42 Lyon Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes has seen enrolments for its selection process rise by 30% over 2021 figures. 530 new students joined it at the start of this academic year, some of them on sandwich courses.
- TUMO Lyon, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, the latest school on the Campus, which opened its doors on 26 January 2022 and today has 500 young people on the TUMO pathway in 4 after-school time slots, will need to triple its capacity to allow in excess of 1,500 young people in the region to benefit from it.
The challenge facing the Campus is that of accelerating its rollout over the 11 hectares with, from 2024, new services to residents: spaces for events and leisure activities, accommodation, catering, business headquarters, etc. There are plans to establish a school for 11-16 year-olds close to the Campus to strengthen links to the initial training programmes.
Via its partners, the Campus is helping to familiarise everyone—learners and residents—with the topics of decarbonisation and sustainable development, in particular in industry:
• Online training programmes to raise students’ and employees’ awareness of the environmental footprint of digital and to put in place good practices to reduce it: an e-learning module “Green IT user - how to reduce your digital environmental impact in business”.
• Workshops on green IT, eco product design, information services and systems: how to design a life cycle to innovate, measure and act.
• Webinars on the eco-design of products, systems and services (including digital services).
• Eco-design training programmes: within businesses and between businesses (both in-person and remote).
The Campus Région du Numérique will also be an identified venue for the event “Mont-Blanc Climate Solutions” taking place in Chamonix on 6 and 7 July. The Campus, together with its partners, will formulate proposals about the decarbonisation of industry by means of workshops and round tables, a way of contributing to the “Fit for 55” roadmap.
