About the GEM > Graduate school of Nancy / Saint-Etienne : organization
The organization of the MINES Graduate School is defined by the idea of a network which fulfills 3 goals.
Each MINES School is of a manageable size allowing the students to be supervised individually. Due to this fact there is a constant dialogue between teaching and administration staff, which helps students from other countries to adapt more rapidly to the study system.
The MINES Schools are situated in regions of economic growth and, therefore, actively participate in the development of the area. Ties with regional companies are strong, and enhanced by the School's high standing in the area.
The size of the MINES network favors synergies along with the development of an ambitious joint policy. As concerns entry to the program, the MINES Schools have a joint admissions policy ; namely entry to the basic Joint Masters program is based on a highly selective entrance examination common to both Schools. A student beginning his/her studies in one of the Schools may finish those studies in another member-School. Information and communication technologies will allow the Schools to share numerous learning activities such as correspondence courses, on-line study groups for project work, etc. In the field of research, the MINES Schools have a long history of collaboration in all domains (research projects in common fields, shared industrial contracts, supervision of doctoral theses, etc.
Last but not least, libraries and resource centers are obviously an integral part of any successful Graduate School, the MINES being, of course, no exception. Modern information-search tools (e.g. Web of Science) are common throughout.