Support

Hosting

École nationale des ponts et chaussées is keen to give student entrepreneurs maximum opportunities for their projects to mature and gain from the School ecosystem: access to laboratories, mentoring and tutoring by teaching staff, legal and financial support…

Students hosted by the School to develop their projects are also expected to promote entrepreneurship at the School by contributing to the activities it organises, and sharing their experience with other students.

Access to the research centers and codevelopment

The PhD, the epitome of Research in the academic sphere, can also be a pathway to entrepreneurship.

Lasting 3 years, a doctorate is both a route to student-entrepreneur status and a way for students to explore and develop an innovative technical and scientific subject relating to their entrepreneurial project. PhD candidates therefore gain from an environment that is particularly conducive to innovation: the backing of a supportive scientific community, a world with a natural focus on innovation, easy access at no extra cost to extensive and up-to-date scientific information and to cutting-edge laboratories and technological platforms. All these facilities enable them to explore their entrepreneurial themes at a cost far below what a young entrepreneur would face  outside the PhD programme.

Moreover, as an internationally recognised qualification, a doctorate gives young entrepreneurs an undeniable technical and scientific legitimacy with future investors, facilitating the task of raising funds.

Finally, doing a PhD at École nationale des ponts et chaussées provides privileged access to partner business incubators, particularly the Ponts incubator at Station F.