Invest in Champagne-Ardenne - CADev (Champagne-Ardenne Developpement) - Universities & Research
Champagne-Ardenne has a high-quality vocational training network, with over 40,000 students of higher education in highly specialised and often unique disciplines for France and even for Europe:
- ENSAM, an elite university college for construction and design, offers the only course in organic agribusiness in France
- ESIReims the elite Engineering College for Packing and Packaging is the only one of its kind in Europe
- The Training Centre for the maintenance of wind-powered installations in Charleville-Mézeières is the first French school to be certified by the German body Bildungszentrum für Erneuerbare Energien (BZEE)
There is strong focus on the key subjects of engineering and management, with numerous institutions of excellence acknowledged in France and abroad: URCA (Université de Reims Champagne-Ardenne - University of Reims Champagne-Ardenne), UTT (Université de Technologie de Troyes - Troyes Technology University), ESIReims (Ecole Supérieure d’Emballage Conditionnement - Advanced School of Packaging and Packing), Arts & Métiers ParisTech (Paris Institute of Technology, Art and Design), , Agro ParisTech (Paris Institute of Technology and Agricultural studies), Reims Management School, Ecole Supérieure de Commerce de Troyes (Troyes Business School) etc.
Business Clusters
An Industries and Agribusiness Resources cluster with an international outlook devoted to the region's non-food industry has been established in Champagne Ardenne to maximise the region's natural resources. It brings together research, education and industry in the four areas of strategic application of bio-refining: bio-energy, bio-materials (in particular bio-plastics) bio-molecules and ingredients for food products.
The cluster's objective is to bring together all the skills and technologies involved in the extraction and formulation of biomass components for any innovative project that satisfies general sustainable development criteria from the laboratory to the industrial production stage.
Its ambition is to become Europe's top organisation for the valorisation of non-food applications of agro-resources by 2015.
Centres of excellence bringing together industry and public and private research centres:
- The internationally renowned regional innovation and technology transfer centre (CRITT), leader in surface treatments
- The Champagne Wines Trade Association Centre (CIVC)
- Europol'Agro, a teaching and research-oriented body in agronomy, wine-farming and oenology which originally set up the Industries and Agribusiness Resources Competitiveness Cluster.
