Muriel Epstein: A Face of EUTOPIA at CY Cergy Paris University

EUTOPIA is an alliance of 10 universities and individuals from diverse backgrounds working together to build the European university of tomorrow. Among EUTOPIA's faces is Muriel Epstein, a researcher and lecturer whose work on school dropout rates and inclusive education is enriched by her immersive experiences within EUTOPIA's partner universities. At 48, Muriel Epstein embodies a generation of academics for whom education, engagement and innovation are inseparable. A trained mathematician and sociologist by calling, she has devoted her career to a single mission: tackling educational disengagement and making schools more inclusive and more humane.

A Committed Academic

It all began with her doctoral thesis in sociology, focusing on the problem of school dropout rates. But Muriel soon refused to limit herself to analysis alone, wanting to take concrete action. She founded an association and created a participatory MOOC where young people at risk of dropping out designed their own tools to help their younger siblings stay in the school system. "This project, followed by hundreds of secondary school pupils, won the prize for most innovative MOOC awarded by France Université Numérique," notes Muriel Epstein, who joined CY Cergy Paris Université in 2020 as a lecturer.

Tellingly, she gave her first lectures online. At the height of the health crisis, remote teaching became mandatory for all, and Muriel Epstein found herself at the crossroads of her two areas of expertise: digital technology and inclusion. Her work focuses on training teachers to use digital tools as a lever against educational disengagement, inspired by active pedagogies and the sciences of education and inclusion.

"When you trust young people, they become agents of their own learning. And that's where the magic happens,"

Convinced that inclusion must also be considered through other lenses, Muriel is interested in what happens in other countries, and particularly in Europe. Drawn by European cooperation, she joined the Young Leaders Academy of the EUTOPIA alliance in 2021, a network of European universities sharing the same vision: building an open, sustainable and inclusive education system. This programme enables her to develop projects on a European scale, to engage particularly with Swedish, Spanish and German teachers, and above all to create a vast network of committed researchers.

"I was interested in seeing how other countries train their teachers or conceive of inclusion. It allows us to question our own certainties. When you step outside your frame of reference, you learn enormously,"

Concrete Mobility Opportunities Through the Young Leaders Academy

It was the Young Leaders Academy that opened these doors for Muriel Epstein. The programme gives her access to a 'carte blanche' grant of €5,000 to travel to partner universities, meet colleagues and build concrete collaborations. She seized this opportunity and undertook multiple stays across Europe.

In Gothenburg, Sweden, she discovered a country she finds magnificent and forged such strong bonds that she returned during her summer holidays to see her colleagues again.

"They're no longer simply professional contacts, they've become friends,"

In Germany, in Dresden, she discovered a department specialising in creating accessible documents for visually impaired pupils. "It's highly technical, and I thought: we absolutely must collaborate with them to train our educational engineers." This meeting led to concrete cooperation between CY and Dresden.

It was indeed during a visit to VUB in Brussels that the PROVEST project was born. "I ran into Inge in a corridor. When she described her project to me, I told her: 'In France, that's me. I work on exactly these subjects.'" This chance encounter gave birth to a €3 million European project.

Muriel also travelled to Portugal, where she helped a student undertake her doctorate at Nova, and to the United Kingdom, where she found contacts at Warwick for another student. "I'm not building a network just for myself. I transfer my network to my students and colleagues. That's what it means to be an ambassador."

"A sense of collective purpose is essential to me. I work with people for whom education matters. And that's an incredible driving force."

From this conviction was born an ambitious project: PROVEST, an innovative European programme that secured €3 million in funding from the European Commission to train teachers to create inclusive, sustainable and empowering learning environments. As a researcher, educator and ambassador for openness, Muriel Epstein embodies a simple yet powerful idea: changing schools means first believing in the power of shared learning. Through this experience within the EUTOPIA alliance and the realisation of this project, Muriel Epstein is building a European network of invaluable partners.