In May 2002, when I was head of the Forest Products Research Centre (FPRC) in High Wycombe, I went to Ecole Supérieure du Bois (ESB; Academy of Wood Science and Technology) in Nantes, France, to give a course on wood-based panels. I had given similar courses there in the previous four years. The difference in 2002 was that the director of ESB asked me to join his team. Since I had always wanted an international dimension to my career, I agreed.
The first noticeable difference was that I had joined an institute whose raison d’être was wood science and technology; I no longer had to explain what I did to colleagues nor justify the existence of my department whereas, in the UK, wood science is a peripheral subject with few students and staff compared to other subjects. When times are hard the institutes look to cut where it hurts least. Perhaps it is no coincidence that the FPRC no longer exists, that Aberdeen has closed its wood science courses and Bangor has just one joint degree with forestry.
Industry links
The other difference was the really close links with industry.
ESB, a private university, was established in 1934 following significant lobbying by the wood products sector and financial support from the Ministry of Agriculture. All the presidents of the academic board have come from industry and all have been managers of large forest products companies except for the current president, Robert Janvrin. Mr Janvrin is director of large construction projects for the Groupe Lafarge, which uses much more concrete than wood, but this is an indicator of the academic board’s strategy to broaden the appeal of wood by involving those outside of the sector; too often we talk too much between ourselves and not enough to the unconverted.
When I was at Bangor and High Wycombe we struggled to find enough students to fill our courses; often we were lucky to attract more than 10 students in any one year. At ESB we typically have 80 in each year. ESB students pay €4,000/year, which did seem a lot when I first arrived, but, with recent changes in the UK, the fee now seems very reasonable…
So why is it that wood science courses are more attractive in France? For sure, more people are involved in forestry and forest products manufacture in France because there is more forest cover (32% of the land area producing over 100 million m³ per year, although only 53 million m³ is harvested). I think, however, the most important factor is the involvement of the French forest products sector in our courses as teachers, internship providers and sponsors.
About one half of our lectures are given by “vacataires” (part-time stand-ins) – people who are paid to give a few hours of a course. Many of these are managers, technical sales staff, R&D staff, production managers and so on who are employed in the forest products sector. Consequently, our students have direct contact with industry decision-makers, which gives them the chance to ask questions and develop their career choices.
Our students must successfully complete an appropriate internship for each year of their course. We require our engineers to do an internship in primary processing during their first year, an internship on improving a product, process or service during the second and an in-depth research project for a company in the third.
Qualifications
This close involvement of industry ensures that our courses are up-to-date, which may add to their attractiveness, but I think that the most important factor is that French forest products companies require their staff to have appropriate qualifications, rather than hiring graduates from other disciplines and training them on the job. By doing this, the companies give worth to wood science qualifications and this attracts students.
Of course, publicity is important too. We produce publicity material that is very similar to that produced in the UK, however, we tend to rely on actions rather than words to spread the message about our courses. This is achieved by being involved in prestigious projects that promote the capability of ESB students. For example, our students built the exhibition area for the Habiter 2050 exhibition in the George Pompidou Centre in 2009. And in 2010 our students helped the winners of the MiniMaousse competition (http://minimaousse-v4.citechaillot.fr/concours.php?p=echelle1) to realise their designs of furniture designed for children. Both of these activities attracted national media coverage.
Student recruitment
With regard to attracting students directly, ESB participates in some education fairs, but more often in commercial exhibitions like the International Timber Show. The school’s annual open day, held in February, attracted around 700 visitors and our student-organised annual gala had nearly 1,000 participants. These will lead to some 600 applications to the ESB, from which we will select 80 students.
No system is perfect and it is not necessarily appropriate for the UK to mimic what is done in France, but maybe there are some lessons to be learned or actions to adapt to the UK’s situation. Wood has a better future now than ever before and the UK risks being left behind because it will not have UK-trained personnel to exploit its forest and recyclable wood resources.
