Cooperative projects

Overview

• Context
• Objectives and target skills
• Themes and key areas
• Target audience
• Conditions of eligibility
• They have placed their confidence in our students
• Feedback

Context

“Understand our times, make a difference” implies enabling students to acquire the capability to analyse social, economic, political or environmental issues of our time, in order to suggest appropriate and relevant solutions. 

In a constantly changing world, students should be given the opportunity to deploy their creativity and critical thinking in the sphere of specific, general-interest and socially beneficial projects for the common good. 

Sciences Po’s Department of Student Life (Direction de la vie étudiante – DVE) encourages the initiatives of those who wish to provide solutions to today’s challenges, while at the same time broadening their horizons and developing skills other than purely academic ones, with a focus on practical aspects of project management, collective and cooperative intelligence and first-hand experimental observation.

These optional « Cooperative Projects » allow Master’s students to further build on the Civic Learning Programme offered by the Undergraduate College and are fully representative of the role of civic engagement in the educational project taught at Sciences Po.

Objectives and target skills

Cooperative projects aim to give students an opportunity to work together on a societal issue using a forward-looking approach. 

Rather than responding to a predefined commission, it is more a question of examining a contemporary issue from a critical and creative standpoint, investigating lines of thought in an inventive way, in order to envisage possible future outcomes.

The idea is to open an investigative space where the team of students, in line with the aims and values of the host organisation, can question, experiment and adapt their approach as they go along.

Our aim is to: 

• Develop the autonomy and sense of initiative of the participating students,
• Foster an exploratory approach,
• Enable iteration and continuous improvement,
• Promote cooperation and encourage collective intelligence,
• Introduce and/or develop the practice of self-assessment,
• Favour critical thinking,
• Encourage the building of interdisciplinary connections.

For their part, students should: 

• Build bridges between newly acquired findings from their work on the project and their own experience gained from their studies,
• Formulate hypotheses and put them to the test,
• Expand, organise and question their own range of knowledge,
• Overcome the obstacles associated with cooperative work (availability, opposing ideas, stand-offs) and develop their culture of contradiction and debate,
• Meet and exchange with the beneficiaries of the project, adapt to their world, their practices or their needs,
• Develop their creativity and their decision-making capability.

Themes and Key Areas

Ideally, the projects proposed should fall into one of the following themes:

• Health, solidarity and inclusion: combating exclusion, support for vulnerable communities, access to education, sport, housing or culture, health awareness, prevention, community-based health, etc.
• Ecology and sustainable development: waste reduction, helping to change attitudes, biodiversity conservation, renewable energy, etc.
• Education and awareness-raising: community education, training on social issues, popularising science, raising awareness of the use of social media, encouraging critical thinking, fighting fake news, etc.
• Social innovation: new ways of working together, pooling of resources, inclusive digital tools, circular economy, participatory democracy, etc.
• Democracy, rights and equality: respect for human rights, the protection of freedoms, the fight against discriminations, civic engagement, reducing inequalities.

Plus any other themes along the same lines, specifically in reference to the UN’s 17 sustainable development objectives (ODD 2030). 

Target audience

The selected projects are open to students on the Paris campus in their first or second year of Master’s, including those on gap year. 

Once the selections are made, students will be organised in teams of 3 to 5 participants, according to their skills and motivation in keeping with the type and objectives of each project.

Conditions of Eligibility

The call for Cooperative projects is primarily open to recognised public-interest Associations and Foundations (ARUP and FRUP) as well as collectives of social and solidarity-based economy (type SCIC) based in France only. Projects submitted by Associations Loi 1901, company and charitable foundations or decentralised services of local authorities will be given careful consideration. 

Projects can be submitted in French or English, depending on the language required for the duration of the project.

Assessment will be based on the following criteria:

• Requisite: put forward a concrete and realistic problem giving rise to observations and experimentation and enabling participating students to query, experiment, reformulate and adapt in order to reach one or more possible solutions, scenarios or perspectives displaying originality and creativity,
• Pertinence: relevance to the themes and key areas set out above (point 3) and non-profit-making, 
• Organisation: expect student commitment at the rate of approximately 2 hours per week (spread out over the 6-month period),
• Beneficiaries: guarantee a cultural immersion for the participants to optimise their understanding and commitment to the project.
  • Important: a project cannot be confined solely to discussion between students, based only on theoretical analysis or remote impact assessments. 
  • In order to construct a relevant response, it is essential that students meet those directly involved in the issue.
• Availability: designate the main contact person for the group, sufficiently available to follow the project through to completion (regular meetings and updates, guidance, etc.)

Hosts Organisations

Students

They have placed their confidence in our students