Soft skills are increasingly sought after in the job market.
These behavioural competencies complement the skills you acquire during your degree programme : adaptability, critical thinking, autonomy, creativity, problem-solving, etc.
Certain initiatives within the ORION programme enable you to obtain an official certification attesting to these competencies !
48 hours to bring ideas to life
This event is a creativity and innovation challenge that trains you in creativity and ideation methods. Upon completion, you will receive a national certificate of excellence in creativity that you can showcase during internships and when entering the workforce.
Objectives:
- Be introduced to the basics of collective creativity, problem framing, and facilitation of the upstream phases of an innovation process.
- Stimulate team creativity to generate a maximum number of ideas and innovative concepts in response to requests from partner companies or institutions.
- Foster collaboration among students from diverse programmes and levels, and between students and companies providing case studies.
2025–2026 session
26 – 28 of November 2025
Contact & registration
Amélie Varner (amelie.varnier@univ-lorraine.fr)
Organiser
Designed and delivered for 22 years by ENSGSI and supported by the ORION programme
48 hours to awaken dormant patents
Intended for third-year undergraduate students (L3) in the Research pathway of the ORION programme, this workshop invites you to explore the potential of patents from Lorraine laboratories through a pathway combining analysis, training and innovative storytelling, presented before a panel of experts.
The objective: to turn so-called “dormant” patents into genuine innovation opportunities.
This workshop is also an opportunity to mobilise your scientific skills in a stimulating team project, while discovering foresight and technology-watch tools you can highlight in internships or professional projects.
2025–2026 session
March 2025
Contact & registration
Amélie Varner (amelie.varnier@univ-lorraine.fr)
Organiser
Organised by ENSGSI within the ORION programme
Business Digitalisation Workshop
The Business Digitalisation Workshop is a three-day challenge during which teams of students (doctoral and Master’s) propose concrete measures to transform a traditional SME into an Industry 4.0 SME equipped with the technologies, organisation and skills needed to thrive in the industry of the future. The teams are multidisciplinary, bringing together 40 students from various faculties, schools and doctoral schools, and international as the challenge is run in partnership with the International University of Rabat (Morocco). Fifty percent of participants are from Université de Lorraine and fifty percent from the International University of Rabat.
The challenge is conducted entirely in English.
2025–2026 session
Dates to be announced
Contact & registration
Amélie Varner (amelie.varnier@univ-lorraine.fr)
Organiser
Organised by ENSGSI within the ORION programme, in partnership with the International University of Rabat.
Think INnovation Week
Module 1: 48 hours to awaken dormant patents
- Bringing together students and doctoral candidates from all disciplines to add value to patents from Lorraine laboratories through an intensive pathway of analysis, training and innovative storytelling, presented before a panel of experts.
Module 2: Business model for an international market & social and environmental responsibility
- Organised as part of “Think Innovation Week” by ENSGSI and the LMI collegium with the support of the ORION programme, the Maison du Doctorat and PeeL.
Module 3: Materialise your ideas
- The “Materialise your ideas” training enables the student and doctoral community, across all disciplines, to learn how to create a prototype, boost their creativity and promote a project. Delivered by ENSGSI and the LMI collegium with the support of the ORION programme, the Maison du Doctorat and PeeL.
The entire Think Innovation Week workshop is delivered in English.
Module 1
July 2025
Module 2
July 2025
Module 3
July 2025
Evening meet-ups : entrepreneurship through science
The meet-ups aim to create a supportive ecosystem for research-driven entrepreneurship within laboratories, to facilitate the involvement of ORION-labelled students and doctoral candidates.
Scheme exclusively for members of ORION clubs and for all doctoral candidates of Université de Lorraine and its partners.
24 hours to start a venture
This event facilitates the exchange of ideas based on participants’ experiences. It develops cross-perspectives on new products and services exploitable in a start-up (participants may be certified).
Scheme exclusively for members of ORION clubs and for all doctoral candidates of Université de Lorraine and its partners.
I’m interested
Are you a student and would like to explore research ? Stay connected with the ORION programme !