On June 9, 2021, the French University in Armenia (UFAR) and its associate university, the Toulouse 3 - Paul Sabatier University signed an agreement to launch a new Master’s program in Artificial Intelligence. This program was developed and will be implemented within the strong academic and strategic partnership between Toulouse 3 and UFAR.
Toulouse 3 is a world-renowned university for its years of teaching computer science and being home to one of the largest computer science research centers in Europe, which features 700 experts and scholars.
The Rector of the French University in Armenia, Prof. Bertrand Venard and the Director of the Computer Science department of the Toulouse 3 University and Associate Dean of the UFAR‘s Computer Science Department , Alain Crouzil told Mediamax about the collaboration and the pillars of the new Master's program.
Toulouse-Yerevan
Alain Crouzil. The new Master in Artificial Intelligence is the next stage of our collaboration, which was initiated in 2018 with a double diploma program in Computer Science and Applied Mathematics.
The first collaboration was around research activities between Computer Science Research Institute of Toulouse and the National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia. Afterwards, we started our discussions with UFAR about the possibility to launch a faculty of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics and grant double degrees (French and Armenian). We began with a Bachelor’s program, now we are launching a Master’s program.
Toulouse 3 is a leading institution in France. It is one of the three universities in the city of Toulouse which is located in the South of France. There are over 100,000 students in the city, while in Toulouse 3, there are more than 35,000 students and 60 research laboratories.
Strong ties
Bertrand Venard. These kind of partnerships are crucial not only for our university, but for Armenia in order to build a network of strong ties with the world’s top universities. This partnership leads the country outside and connects it to the world; once you are in a small country, you have to rely on the world to build your strength.
Strategically, partnerships are very important for the country's security, as well as economic, higher education and expertise development. In our case, UFAR builds several partnerships which are extremely important for combining our powers to create something together and work alongside all the time.
With two associate universities (Toulouse 3 and Lyon 3), we consider ourselves a part of this global Armenian network in the various areas of education and research. We don’t do things alone; we do things with our colleagues from the starting point of accepting the candidates to the end of the point of giving a degree.
Benefits
Bertrand Venard. Due to this partnership our students get the top-level knowledge and recognized double degrees in Armenia and in France, recognized therefore in whole Europe.
Since 1993, by law in Europe, once you get a degree of a European country, in our case a French degree, it is considered a world-recognized European degree.
Bertrand Venard and Alain Crouzil Photo: Mediamax
It is also very important for business and economy in Armenia to have young Armenians with not only general skills, but also recognized expertise through a degree which is globally recognized. Through the partnership with Toulouse 3, we have been creating this ecosystem and bringing a value to various spheres: we bring value to the country in terms of training young Armenians, we create relationships between UFAR, Toulouse 3 and the companies working outside and inside of Armenia.
This collaboration also requires students to learn many languages. The partnership with foreign university implies that students have to be open to the world and benefit from international relationships. Therefore, the idea of doing an international career also becomes easier. At the same time, this international career is important for Armenia as well, as we encourage our students to return and contribute their education to Armenia’s development.
Research-oriented
Alain Crouzil. It is very important to mention that this new Master is the same program that we have in Toulouse. The courses are all the same, therefore, we grant the same diploma to both our French and Armenian students.
What makes this Master's degree program special? First, it combines theoretical and practical training. Second, there are various opportunities for projects and internships, as we provide an industry-oriented education. Third, it is a training through research and for research.
Through research, because the professors coming from Toulouse are not only lecturers but also researchers. They are members of the biggest laboratory of Computer Science in France. The director of Toulouse Research Institute in Computer Science (IRIT) is also among these professors. Training for research, because we work with the objective of preparing students to conduct research; some of our alumni are going to work, while some of them are going to start a PhD thesis.
Bertrand Venard and Alain Crouzil Photo: Mediamax
For this whole Master’s program, plenty of professors are expected to come to Armenia from the Toulouse university. These professors are going to bring to UFAR the latest research results and this fact is very important, because the domain of Artificial Intelligence is very changeable.
Bertrand Venard: The new UFAR Master is unique. Indeed, there are not many countries in the world which could offer Master’s programs in Artificial Intelligence. The reason is simple: professors of Artificial Intelligence like professors in Cyber Security are in a very high demand. In general, the demand of Artificial Intelligence experts is huge worldwide and especially in Armenia.
Evening courses and languages
Bertrand Venard. We imagine that many students of this program will be working part time since the courses will be in the evening. We want to give the students a possibility to work during the day.
The hybrid of practicing during the day and learning in the evening will imply that they will have the ability to use the expertise immediately. The country will not have to wait for two years to have trained experts in Artificial Intelligence; this system of the evening teaching and day work will deliver extremely high value to the country and very fast.
Besides, this program gives a great importance to foreign languages. While technical courses are taught in English, learning French is compulsory for all students. The concern of UFAR is to open its students to the world: it is important for us to create a global citizen who speaks different languages, so we really push them to learn many languages. They also work with foreign professors. Every year our students meet an average of 80 foreign professors in UFAR.
For the future, we will develop plenty of Master’s programs and strength our scientific schemes, such as our PhD in Computer Science. We have already s strong PhD program. We have always been keeping the idea of PhD and science in our mind, because we are a research-oriented university and we wish to do research with our partners. At UFAR, valuable training and technology is now.
Amalie Khachatryan
Photos: Emin Aristakesyan
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