The possibility to further strengthen ties was mooted during a recent meeting with delegates from French universities who visited the institution to investigate the possibility of research collaborations, staff and student exchanges and skill building programmes.
French Embassy representative, Dr Pierre Lemonde, who led the delegation, says there are many areas of collaboration that will complement the South African government’s goal of developing human capacity in specific areas.
Currently the majority of collaborations with the French are concentrated in the Engineering Faculty, but Lemonde says they hope to extend this to other disciplines.
Head of the International Affairs Department Merle Hodges says CPUT is fortunate to have such deep ties with a country such as France and to collaborate on so many levels.
The most notable partnership with the French is F’SATI, a joint venture between CPUT and ESIEE-Paris, a graduate school in France. Based at the Bellville Campus, F’SATI leads training in satellite systems engineering in Africa.
“We can see an organic growth with France as a country,” says Hodges.
“The vision for the future is to look at bringing the French industry to CPUT.”
