Who is Philippe Baptiste, the fiery Minister of Higher Education and Research? | EUROtoday

Sthis cry of alarm had moved the European heads of state. “If we don’t move faster, we’re all going to die!” » launched in March 2024 Philippe Baptiste, then president of the National Center for Space Studies (Cnes), conscious that the European Space Agency (ESA) is at risk within the face of aggressive competitors from SpaceX and China. A motto that he’ll be capable of apply throughout his mandate as Minister of Higher Education and Research inside the authorities of François Bayrou, unveiled Monday December 23.

The area sector professional stories to Élisabeth Borne, Minister of National Education, Higher Education and Research and former head of presidency. Man is not going to uncover his ministry, removed from it.

This former head of the technique and innovation division of the Ministry of National Education from 2013 to 2014 can be, from 2017 to 2019, the chief of employees of the Minister of Higher Education, Frédérique Vidal, with whom it prefigures the well-known Parcoursup platform.

Specialist in synthetic intelligence

Doctor in pc science from the University of Technology of Compiègne (Oise) and civil engineer from Mines de Nancy (Meurthe-et-Moselle), this specialist in algorithms and synthetic intelligence systematically injects new applied sciences throughout his visits to the personal at Bouygues, IBM and Total. From 2002 to 2012, he taught pc science at Polytechnique, however it’s his analysis profession that retains him most busy.

ALSO READ Government: François Bayrou defends his casting with out getting moist on the deservesAt the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), he created, in 2010, the Institute of Information Sciences and their Interactions, earlier than being appointed, in 2014, Deputy Director General for Science. This permits him to affix the board of administrators of the National Institute for Research in Digital Sciences and Technologies (Inria) and the excessive scientific council of the National Office for Aerospace Studies and Research (Onera), two gems public analysis in France.

In 2021, Philippe Baptiste achieves his Holy Grail: he’s appointed president of Cnes. He who dreamed of cosmonauts and made fashions of the Apollo lunar lander when he was a baby can lastly commit all his power to area exploration.

Not afraid of controversy

He determined to modernize this venerable establishment by giving extra space to start-ups, by selling modern techniques comparable to nanosatellites and constellations, with out forgetting to help the rise in energy of the Space Command, a department of the military. of air and area which can be put in, from 2019, within the Cnes premises in Toulouse (Haute-Garonne), whereas ready to have its personal constructing. Military and civilian specialists collaborate each day to defend French pursuits in orbit.

ALSO READ Éric Lombard, the brand new robust man of BercyNot afraid of controversy, Philippe Baptiste proposes proscribing a founding precept of the ESA: geographical return, in response to which every euro invested by a Member State in a European area challenge offers it the appropriate to a proportional share of the roles generated.

Its purpose: to dynamite the fuel manufacturing unit during which components of rockets or satellites are produced within the 4 corners of Europe earlier than being assembled. Too costly and too complicated, in comparison with SpaceX which concentrates – and optimizes – all of its industrial actions in its manufacturing unit in Hawthorne, California.

Countering the expertise drain

At the Ministry of Higher Education and Research, Philippe Baptiste will notably have to make sure the financing of French minds, from their coaching to their analysis careers. Faced with the explosion of Chinese laboratory budgets, it’s much more tough to cease the flight of expertise, now courted in Asia as in North America.

ALSO READ New authorities: Bayrou performs “Barnier bis”
To Discover



Kangaroo of the day

Answer

While our researchers, together with these awarded main worldwide prizes, should battle for months to acquire a place as a doctoral scholar or younger researcher of their group in France or Europe, international laboratories provide them alternatives. packages tough to refuse, with hundreds of thousands of {dollars}.

“I have to fight to obtain a budget of 50,000 euros to try to keep a Nobel Prize here,” a senior analysis official in France confided to us bitterly a number of days in the past. Will Philippe Baptiste be capable of put stars within the eyes of our researchers? For this to occur, the Bayrou authorities’s rocket should not stay nailed to the bottom.