On Sunday, November 6, 2022, the ceremony for the handover of the AMNT Chair's steering committee took place at SIMA. Thierry Lhotte, Vice President and General Manager of Massey Ferguson, is handing over the chairmanship of the COPIL to Christian Fischer, Sales Manager France Kuhn for the next two years.
Created in 2015, on the initiative of UniLaSalle, an engineering and veterinary school, and industrial leaders in their sectors, the main objective of the Chair is to "Cross the challenges of scientific research and those of industrial partners by accompanying the energy, digital and agro-ecological transitions," says Thierry Lhotte, Vice President and General Manager Massey Ferguson. The strategic orientations of the AMNT Chair are decided by its steering committee.
After 7 years of activity, the AMNT Chair has many achievements to its credit: recruitment of dedicated teachers, creation in 2016 of a specialization course in Agro-Equipment and New Technologies engineering (the number of students has increased from 5 to 27 for the current class), and implementation of a 2020-2023 research program (many research projects are underway).
On these solid foundations, the AMNT Chair and its partners AGCO - Massey Ferguson, the Michelin Corporate Foundation, and the Kuhn Group are committed to new large-scale projects under the chairmanship of Christian Fischer, Kuhn's Sales Director for France.
"It is with great pleasure that we have accepted. We now know what the Chair can bring to the profession, to the partner manufacturers, but also to all the industrialists in the sector through the research programs and new training courses that we can provide," explains Christian Fischer, Sales Director for France at Kuhn.
This ceremony was an opportunity to look ahead to the future of the partnership, and to present the major projects for the coming years:
- Development of the Bachelor of Science and Engineering in Agriculture, Digital, and Embedded Technologies (AgriTEN), launched in 2021 and transverse on different sites (Beauvais, Amiens), a bachelor's level training, to meet the challenges of the industry. The first graduates are expected in 2024;
- Inauguration at the beginning of 2023 of an Agro-Mechanics Workshop on the UniLaSalle Beauvais campus, training support for the Bachelor's degree and the AgroTechnologies engineering training, an essential tool to enable students to appropriate the applied dimension of embedded technologies and machinery in general;
- Launch of the LATEST program (Local-focused AgTech Education for Successful Agricultural Transitions): first important international collaboration with Italy, Germany, Austria and the UK. Its prospects: opening of an Erasmus Mundus Master's degree, by 2024, for international students, on the role of AgTech as a tool for adaptation to climate change;
- A new version of the Chair's scientific program is being designed for implementation starting in 2024: an opportunity to integrate new topics related to current issues (energy, LCA, ecological performance).
The Chair is a powerful tool that reflects UniLaSalle's commitment to the development of the Beauvaisis territorial cluster on the issues of agricultural machinery.
