Futures of Industry and Work (FIT2) Chair at Mines ParisTech

Employers are struggling to fill jobs while many candidates are unable to find a role that matches their career aspirations. Entire regions are falling behind. Social cohesion and economic prosperity are threatened. Today’s digital transformation, economic globalisation, environmental challenges and societal changes may introduce new forms of work organisation and fundamentally reshape the education system.

In January 2018, the ‘Futures of Industry and Work: Education, Innovation and Regions’ (FIT²) Chair was established with the intent of contributing to this debate. Its sponsors – Mäder Group, Kea Partners, Theano Advisers, FaberNovel and La Fabrique de l’industrie – are committed to redefining businesses and regions in order to foster economic prosperity. The Chair’s ambitions are threefold: it aims to make recommendations on how to enable workers to better fulfil their aspirations, on how to design new training programmes tailored to the needs of tomorrow’s industry and on how to improve stakeholder accountability in organisations.

The FIT² Chair conducts, encourages and promotes studies that examine possible Futures for Industry and Work and their public policy implications. Its research team assesses emerging practices related to innovation, further education, quality of work and collective action. The Chair targets multiple audiences. It hosts public debates and regularly invites practitioners and researchers to participate in multidisciplinary task forces.

Currently held by Thierry Weil, head of the MIDI research group (French acronym for Innovation Management and Industrial Dynamics) at Mines ParisTech, the FIT² Chair works closely with La Fabrique de l’industrie, L’Ecole de Paris du management, the Education, Training, Work and Regions Committee of the French Academy of Engineering (Académie des technologies) and an important network of independent experts.

The Chair welcomes new partnerships and sources of funding.

Publications in 2018 :

• The Chair released two books in 2018

– Indus’Trip: A short piece recounting Dimitri Pleplé’s industrial Tour de France. From May to July 2017, this 25-year-old engineer completed a 3,000K cycle ride across the country, during which he visited 33 factories and interviewed over 80 workers.
– Turmoil within the Social Representations of Work: A historical study by Laurence Decréau investigating the reasons behind the low popularity of manufacturing jobs in France.

• Forthcoming Publications

– Cerisy Symposium on the Changing Nature of Work

In September 2018, corporate leaders, HR directors, trade unionists, faculty members, public sector representatives and citizens eager to know more about the changing nature of work got together in Cerisy to discuss the following topics over a week:
– What may new forms of work organisation and new production practices look like?
– How are professional boundaries being shifted?
– How may appreciation for good work be shown in the future?

Proceedings of the symposium will be published in April 2019.

– Digital Transformation at the Executive Level
Based on fifteen interviews with top executives of large and mid-cap companies, this book by Christophe Deshayes will be published in April 2019. It will take the reader behind the scenes of digital transformation at the highest hierarchical level.

• Ongoing Research

– Emerging Skills and Organisational Forms
Workshops and factory visits are regularly organised to gather information about the new skills and organisational forms developed in response to digitalisation.

– Employee Empowerment Case Studies
Top-down decision-making is still the most common approach to organisational management today. Yet, several studies have shown that employees would like to be given more autonomy in their work. How can workers be empowered and held accountable for their choices without feeling burdened? What can managers learn from so-called ‘freedom-form companies’?

For further information, please contact: thierry.weil@mines-paristech.fr