CY Cergy Paris Université

Mission Statement

At CY school of design, we train designers of all transitions, capable of grasping the immense challenges of the 21st century – global warming, falling biodiversity, democratic crisis, economic crisis, health crisis – and contributing to creating the conditions for successful life experiences for each and every one, from matter to decision, from the product to the experience. The stakes are :

• Manage, use, transform, the world's resources in a sustainable and reasoned way
• Design and produce the objects, systems, services and experiences at the service of each and everyone
• Prepare, motivate and orchestrate the best possible decisions

It is no longer the time to train vertical specialists, but global professionals, capable of positioning themselves on the continuum from material to decision, and ready to join their very diverse talents for the benefit of projects that are always bigger than they are.
It is the human and not the technical stakes that are important.
We make this positioning all the more legible as all projects are motivated by the 17 UNO  sustainable development goals

International Role

CY School of design is a school of CY Cergy Paris University, this institution being a part of EUTOPIA European University. EUTOPIA is the alliance of 6 European universities: Vrije Universitat Brussels, CY Cergy Paris University, the University of Gothenburg, the University of Ljubljana, the University of Pompeu Fabra and the University of Warwick.

They are working to build a university model reflecting an open and united Europe, respectful of citizens and the environment. EUTOPIA will produce challenge-driven research and teaching, prepare empowered European graduates, champion regional and international involvement, and support diversity, inclusivity and widening citizenship.

National Role

CY school of design is the first ever design school created with a university in France. Its national ambition is to break  both the numerus clausus and financial hurdles that bars students from any social origins to invest on design studies.
It aims at training professionals with a high intellectual, cultural and political purpose, ready to enter private or public organizations in order to transform them to better address all transitions issues.

At the regional level, it is strongly connected with the public authorities (city, district, region) with which it collaborates.
The connexion with the industry is strategic, and at the centre of its pedagogy. Most of the class are given by professionals, loads of projects (20 per students all along the curriculum) are given by companies, associations or public authorities.

Being a design school within a university, it gives us a lot of opportunity to collaborate with sisters schools, notably within inter-schools projects or double degrees.

CY school of design participates to a larger ambitious program by CY Cergy Paris University, one of the few universities with an experimental status in France. By choosing "Design your life" as its base line, CY Cergy Paris University is asserting its desire to bring the power of design to all its students in all its territories.

Main Focus

For the living, from Matter to decision, CY school of design is training the designers that this world needs, capable of embracing the diversity of human and living issues, by mastering and deploying not only all the knowledge, methods, tools and techniques of creation, design and ideation that make and define a designer in the 21st century, but also by having a deeper knowledge of new technologies, research and development and companies – from strategy to governance, from finance to marketing, from management to entrepreneurship. 
Through a complete 5-year course, CY Ecole de Design deployes a project-based pedagogy aimed at designing solutions for the common good. With contributions from management, human and social sciences and engineering sciences, touching on matter as well as thought, the designers of CY school of design are ready to enter professional life with great humanistic values in mind, to take care of others and the world.