Ecological transition looking for engineers for the start of the school year

Why are mathematicians, responsible for designing industrial solutions, so called upon to respond to the challenge of climate change?

Why are engineers and technicians needed, when it is precisely human (industrial) activity that emits CO2 into the atmosphere, raises temperatures, accelerates the melting of glaciers and burns forests?

Because the energy transition “will move into a phase of greater growth than before,” replies Clarisse Magnin, managing director of the strategy consulting firm McKinsey France, after a scorching summer.

By transition, we mean electrification of the world to replace fossil fuels - coal, oil and gas - whose CO2 emissions warm the climate.

We must also intend to adapt processes and "massively train even more engineers (...) while maintaining the basis of excellence", summarizes Ms. Magnin during an interview with AFP.

“We have very big holes in the production of engineers, even if we have a very high quality system,” she adds.

Many employers, particularly in high-tech industries, “report their difficulty in recruiting technical profiles for their factories”, notes McKinsey in the report “Redefining industrial strategies in the light of major recent changes” published this summer.

“We are witnessing a kind of free-for-all, industrialists cannot find the skills they need,” declared Wednesday Marc Rumeau, president of the Association of Engineers and Scientists of France (IESF) during the presentation of the 2023 engineers observatory.

“Industrial Renaissance”

While France needs 60.000 additional engineers each year, it only has 44.000 new graduates per year, according to IESF which highlights the very low unemployment rate in the profession (2,7%).

The transition projects over the coming decades will range from metal recycling to non-polluting air conditioners or heaters, including automobile electric batteries, new fuels, electrolysers and even the relaunch of nuclear power.

“We will especially need a lot of engineers in the first phase, then gradually a lot of technicians for the implementations,” explains Philippe Boucly, president of France Hydrogène, which brings together players in the booming sector.

Hydrogen is a textbook case. It must move from the chemical sector to the energy sector. Gray hydrogen, a high CO2 emitter, produced today from methane, must give way to clean hydrogen, resulting from the electrolysis of water with carbon-free electricity. It must replace fossil coal to make steel and be used to store renewable energy.

So many new machines and processes to be launched, which characterize an “industrial renaissance”, according to Hugues Lavandier, co-author of the McKinsey report.

“Attract more young girls”

For Laurent Tardif, president of the Federation of Electrical, Electronic and Communication Industries (FIEEC) and administrator of Centrale-Supelec, one of the largest and most prestigious French engineering schools, the only solution to increase the workforce without lowering the level - that is to say without eliminating the selective preparatory classes for mathematics and post-baccalaureate physics - "is to attract more young girls" in scientific preparatory courses, a still very male bastion.

Two years ago, Centrale Supelec launched "summer camps" at its Saclay headquarters during the summer, welcoming second-year students and their families, in order to show them the school and explain to them what an engineer does.

“We had 40 young girls the first year and 150 last year, for the entrance exam,” explains Mr. Tardif.

Other initiatives are promoted, such as “Cap ingénieuse” to introduce science to primary school children by engineering students, in order also to “deconstruct gender prejudices”.

But progress is struggling to materialize. For a decade, the proportion of girls has stagnated at around 28% of students in the 204 French schools, and they represent only 24% of the 1,11 million active engineers, with significant gender pay gaps, shows the IESF survey.