The EIL Côte d’Opale trains general engineers in the agri-food industry at the Boulogne-Sur-Mer site. The “Agri-food” speciality aims to train engineers capable of designing a new product or a new agri-food manufacturing process in a context of sustainable development and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), to organise and manage agri-food production, to implement a Health, Safety, Quality and Environment (HSQE) policy in agri-food companies, to use and develop IT tools and to communicate and manage and lead teams.

These skills can be applied to all sectors of the agri-food industry, from very small enterprises (VSEs) to large companies.

The engineer trained in Boulogne-Sur-Mer, at the heart of Europe’s leading seafood processing centre, will develop skills in innovation and food safety for seafood processing and fisheries. Indeed, in their training curriculum, engineering students will address courses in the aquatic field such as: marine food resources (wild, farming), aquaculture process engineering, safety of aquatic products and valorization of aquatic products. In addition, this specialty is based on a solid training in digital tools in the fields of manufacturing process management and bioinformatics.

The engineer specialising in agri-food will finally integrate the different aspects of industrial management, whether organisational, human, economic or environmental dimensions.

The EIL Côte d’Opale engineer is also trained to carry out research, innovation and entrepreneurship projects in a context of sustainable development.

The curriculum of the Engineering Cycle is broken down into Teaching Units (UE) according to the following typology :

• Basic Sciences.
• Engineering Sciences and Techniques.
• Specialty Sciences.
  Humanities, Economics, Legal and Social Sciences.
• International Openness.
• Internship.

The engineering cycle of the Agri-Food speciality is open to students from preparatory classes for the Grandes Ecoles in the MPI, PC, PSI, TSI, BCPST and TPC specialization courses or from the integrated preparatory cycle of the EIL Côte d’Opale.

Through an internal competitive examination and within the limit of available places, students at the Master 1, Licence 2, Licence 3 level as well as students holding a BUT or a BTS can also join this specialty.

The initial training of students in the engineering cycle takes place over 3 years. It is organised according to the principle of semesterisation and is therefore broken down into 6 semesters (S5 to S10).

The courses are defined through teaching modules. which may include Lectures (CM), Tutorials (TD) and Practical Work (TP).

During the first two years of the Computer Science engineering cycle, engineering students follow a common core, including UEs such as Basic Sciences, Engineering Sciences and Techniques, Specialty Sciences, Humanities, Economics, Legal and Social Sciences, International Opening, Internship.

In the final year, engineering students also follow a common core and, depending on their professional project, choose one of the following two courses :

• Safety of aquatic products or,
• Valorisation of food products.

Students can also follow a course they have chosen as part of a one-semester international mobility or to obtain a double degree.

Finally, the engineering student in his final year has the opportunity to strengthen his professional experience and to be paid within the framework of professionalization contracts offered by many agri-food companies. These students then follow an alternation of 3 days in school (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday) and 2 days in the company (Thursday and Friday) during the first semester.

The training is punctuated by numerous projects spread over the three years.

In the first year :
A 30-hour study project in semester S6.
A 30-hour solidarity project in semesters S5 and S6.
In the second year :
An associative life project started during S5 and S6 and finalized in S7 and S8.
A 50-hour technical project in semesters S7 and S8.
In the third year :
An Innovation and Design Project (PIC) lasting 150 hours in semester S9.

The courses of the Agri-Food specialty total 2060 hours, including 1770 hours of face-to-face teaching which includes exams and 290 hours of teaching per project which are distributed according to the graph below :

The practical training is supplemented by periods of internships in companies. The duration of the internships during the training period is a minimum of 9 months and represents a volume of 1360 hours. These internships place future engineers at the heart of the company’s realities :

• At the end of the second year of the Engineering Cycle, they complete an internship as an assistant engineer (management of a technical project) for a minimum of 12 weeks in France or in a foreign country,
• At the end of the last year, they carry out their 6-month end-of-studies project in a company in France or in a foreign country. Engineering students are placed in a situation of initiative to solve or contribute to the resolution of a technical or non-technical industrial problem.

The field of Engineering Sciences and Techniques is based on disciplines such as biology, Quality – Environment, Computer Science, Process Engineering, logistics and mathematics.

Industrial Management details the concepts of organization, industrial management and presents project management as well as entrepreneurship (project and team management, risk management, environmental management, etc.).

The Humanities integrate the human, social, legal, economic and environmental dimensions as well as languages.

The knowledge of the Humanities, Economics, Legal and Social Sciences courses constitutes a fundamental foundation for the acquisition of skills in corporate culture and entrepreneurship, management, the conduct and management of projects and teams, as well as knowledge of law, economics and business management, which are essential for any engineer. Some of these lessons are applied to issues related to logistics.

The purpose of the projects is to teach engineering students how to carry out a project from design to completion, including all the phases faced by the engineer in charge of carrying out a project in a company. They allow the learning of group work, the coordination of tasks, autonomy and the analysis of industrial problems whose complexity increases with the advancement in the engineering students’ curriculum. The minimum 10 months of internships, which are mandatory, allow future engineers to familiarize themselves with the structure and working methods in an industrial environment.

The aim of international openness is to prepare engineering students to work in an international context and to have a global and global vision of the issues they will have to deal with. This opening includes training in foreign languages, in particular English and a second modern language (German, Spanish, Chinese, etc.). The aim is to give future engineers the practices that will enable them to participate usefully in work meetings involving people of different nationalities. As English is the language of business, it has been made compulsory at EIL Côte d’Opale (200 hours over the entire course).

A certified level of English, attested by a recognized test external to the EIL Côte d’Opale (the TOEIC test), is required to validate the diploma. The desirable level for an engineer is level C1 of the “European Framework of Reference for Languages” of the Council of Europe. Under no circumstances will an engineering degree from EIL Côte d’Opale be awarded to an engineering student who does not reach the certified B2 level (i.e. 785 points for the TOEIC).

Finally, the school gives an important place to training in and through research. Thus, all students follow two modules with a direct link to the research carried out in the school’s partner laboratories. In addition, the projects carried out may be based on one of the issues developed by the partner laboratories. This opens the possibility for graduates of EIL Côte d’Opale to pursue, if they wish, doctoral thesis studies.

The engineering cycle study regulations and the syllabus of the Agri-Food speciality detail the modalities and programmes of the three years of training.

Each module is subject to pre-defined evaluations and entitles you to ECTS (European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System) credits if validated.

The evaluation method of the EIL Côte d’Opale is continuous assessment in each subject.

Projects and internships are considered modules in their own right and are also evaluated based on a written report and an oral presentation that trigger the award of ECTS credits in case of validation.

The regulations for the studies of the Agri-Food speciality specify the terms and conditions for assessing the knowledge of the three years of training.

Engineers who graduated from EIL Côte d’Opale, specialising in Agri-food, work for agri-food companies in all sectors.

The professions targeted by the training are the following: HSQE Manager, R&D Formulation Engineer, Agri-Food Production Manager. These are professions where the hiring of managers in the agri-food sector remains important. These professions refer to the APEC Opcalim studies dating from 2018 and 2019 and referencing the state of the executive job market in the food sector1,2.

1Apec Opcalim barometer. The executive job market in the food sector, May 2018.
2Apec Opcalim barometer. The job market is in the agri-food industry. ISBN 978-2-7336- 1184-5 July 2019