Positioning and action

Positioning

EFELIA Côte d'Azur, as a major project led by Université Côte d'Azur (UniCA) at the head of the consortium, works alongside other leading entities in the region focused on AI and education:  

  • While 3IA Côte d’Azur creates or supports a limited number of highly specialized AI programs (such as the MSc in Data Science and AI, or the University Diploma in AI & Health), EFELIA Côte d’Azur extends AI education to all disciplines, providing foundational instruction for 90% of the approximately 15,000 undergraduate students at UniCA, while also driving and supporting the creation of specialized courses at the master’s level. As a result, some 30 master’s-level minors have been created since 2023, reaching more than 700 students and covering nearly 50% of the university’s master’s programs.  
  • The Center for Pedagogical Innovation, whose mission is to support faculty members, with whom we actively collaborate and have developed the AI Reference Center for Students and the AI Reference Center for Faculty. This center is led by the Vice-Presidency for Pedagogical Transformation, which has been leading the Generative AI and Teaching-Learning Working Group at UniCA since early 2025 (in which EFELIA Côte d’Azur participates).  
  • The Vice Presidency for Digital Transformation leads the thoughtful, critical, and reasoned deployment of AI tools for university staff and users, in close collaboration with national higher education and research initiatives. EFELIA Côte d'Azur, through the colleagues involved in it, contributes to the research and initiatives carried out by this Vice Presidency. 

Actions

EFELIA Côte d'Azur's initiatives are organized into five work packages:     

  • Initial Training: WP1  
  • Online Training and Thematic Schools: WP2  
  • Computational Platform: WP3  
  • Continuing Education: WP4  
  • AI Outreach: WP5  

WP1 : Initial training 

  • Master's minors introduced from 2023: see the minors offered. 
  • Cross-disciplinary AI competency in the first, second, and third years of the bachelor’s program, Introduced progressively starting in 2024. 

In addition, EFELIA Côte d'Azur supports and complements its educational programs through several other initiatives:  

Manifesto UniCA IA et enseignement supérieur 

To address the unplanned and largely unregulated arrival of generative AI tools in student learning practices, EFELIA Côte d'Azur has launched a manifesto on AI and higher education. This manifesto sets forth Université Côte d’Azur’s position of principle on AI in higher education. It was adopted by a vote of the institution’s Academic Council on December 18, 2025. This text is driven by the intense questions and need for guidance within the university community—including students and faculty—amid uncertainty regarding the best practices to adopt when using generative AI tools. It is grounded in a duty of caution that focuses not on potentially ideal conditions of use, but on the actual conditions under which students and faculty experience these tools.  

Charte d'utilisation s outils d'IA générative pour l'enseignement et l'apprentissage 

This manifesto complements the Charter on the Use of Generative AI Tools for Teaching and Learning issued by the aforementioned Working Group: the manifesto sets forth an institutional policy, while the charter aims to regulate their use.  

Internship grants

EFELIA Côte d'Azur funds Master’s-level internship grants aimed at encouraging research and training that address issues related to Artificial Intelligence.  

Scholarships 

EFELIA Côte d’Azur funds mobility scholarships in Artificial Intelligence (AI). The goal is to promote mobility among AI students so they can acquire and/or develop new skills.  
 
EFELIA Côte d’Azur funds excellence scholarships to support master’s students enrolled in a program that includes a component in artificial intelligence (AI). 

WP2: Support for Thematic Schools Focused on AI and MOOCs  

  • Support for AI-related summer schools 
  • Summer schools previously organized or supported: Deep Learning School, Knowledge Innovation Dynamics, Deep Law for Tech 
  • Development of MOOCs (link coming soon) : 
    • In progress:
      • Managing missing data: the basics for avoiding errors: This MOOC is intended for beginners in statistical learning who want to learn about specific methods for handling missing values.  
      • Handling Missing Data: Challenges and Advanced Methods: This MOOC is intended for experts in statistical learning who wish to learn about methods specific to handling missing values.   

WP3: Computational Platform

For the partner Eurecom, EFELIA Côte d'Azur enabled the creation, starting in 2023, of a computing platform to support AI training for engineering students (150 per year in degree programs and 60 per year in non-degree programs), as well as to develop the EULER project, which won the 2025 AI Summit in the “AI for Efficiency” category.  

At Université Côte d'Azur, with the aim of streamlining computing needs for a number of courses, and following an in-depth analysis of available options and potential opportunities for resource sharing, EFELIA Côte d'Azur participated in the purchase of a shared GPU server for teaching and administrative purposes (the national ILaaS platform), under the administration of the Information Systems Department. This platform, which will be in the testing phase in the spring of 2026, will subsequently be announced to the university community.  

WP4: Continuing training 

EFELIA Côte d'Azur offers continuing education programs of varying types and durations for businesses, local governments, nonprofit organizations, and UniCA staff. The goal is to “provide training in AI” by raising awareness of related issues (such as personal data protection, the environment, and collective efficiency in the workplace) and by highlighting both the strengths (particularly generative AI) and the limitations of AI.  

WP5: AI Outreach 

EFELIA Côte d'Azur organizes or participates in numerous outreach initiatives. Foremost among these is the creation, in collaboration with the Chair in AI Economics and Innovation, of the VOILA! seminars: Visions Of Artificial Intelligence, which periodically feature accessible presentations by scientific experts on major issues related to AI (environment, politics, education, etc.).