Hello there.
Thank you for accepting our invitation.
First I would like to ask you to introduce yourself
and/or research areas.
Thank you.
Thank you for inviting me to share my experience of this programme.
I'm an economics
professor.
I joined the ISCAE (Institut supérieur de commerce et d'administration
des entreprises), which is a public business school
in Casablanca in Morocco.
I teach,
I'm an economist by training, and I teach all areas
linked to the economy, whether macro,
micro, the innovation economy, enterprise economy,
a certain number of subjects that fall under the discipline of economics.
My own areas of interest or research topics are essentially
the innovation economy. I'm interested in everything to do with
industrial property, patents, innovations
and all topics linked to
innovation.
How did you find out about the scheme
for guest speakers put in place at the University of Lille?
And what encouraged you to answer the call for applications?
It should be said
that the ISCAE
which is my home Institute, has been
in partnership with the University of Lille since the beginning of the 2000s,
as part of a course focused on international trade.
So it's a partnership
that has lasted practically 20 years.
And so,
the relations maintained between my institute
and the University of Lille are very, very important.
These are institutional
relations and I have made
the most of them to renew
my own relations with researchers.
And also in terms of teaching
first of all with the programme heads
who are partners, to try to expand the collaboration.
Could you tell us a bit
more about how your trip to
the University of Lille
and the logistics of your arrival were organised?
So the logistical aspects and the whole organization
of the trip for guest speakers really went very well.
There were no hiccups.
Really, things were planned
exceptionally well.
And I always say so to my contact at the University,
the accommodation, the
transport, logistics, the flight, the train,
everything went absolutely seamlessly.
During your trip to our University,
what kind of work did you do?
Well,
my work was part of a
programme focused on the management of international trade
with a group of around 20 students for
whom I was in charge of a module based on
markets on the southern shores of the Mediterranean.
How have you benefited from this trip as a guest speaker?
And what are the benefits for the students
and your other interlocutors at the University of Lille?
Well, the benefit of the trip
on a personal level
was essentially my interaction with
our partner, and with the teaching staff
who work in this discipline.
I should also say that at the other end,
at the ISCAE, I'm in charge of a slightly similar
programme focused on international trade.
So seeing students
on the other side of the Mediterranean working on this programme
and its content, being able to interact with them, allows me
to keep up to speed,
you might say, with the programme content,
to improve it or introduce
teaching innovations. Perhaps do
some benchmarking, which is a very important dimension.
Then there is the relationship with teaching staff,
discussions, particularly in relation to the research.
There have been two or three proposals
to oversee or jointly supervise doctoral research,
so even though
those proposals were never fully seen through,
they are on the table
and are discussed regularly.
So that's the benefit on the other side mainly for students
on courses I have run in the past.
I think nowadays the
companies they end up working
for are businesses that increasingly focus
on markets with high levels of growth
because the southern shores of the Mediterranean,
and in this case the Maghreb, which is considered
as a gateway to Africa, are markets with huge potential.
And so having some knowledge
of the specificities of those markets,
studying how they operate, understanding the mechanisms
that govern them, is undeniably a value added of this
programme focused on international trade.
OK, many thanks.
One last question for you: can you tell us about
what followed your trip as a guest speaker?
For example, did it
allow you to develop new scientific cooperative projects?
Well
I think that most of the partnerships
that need to be worked on ...
The content today
is mainly pedagogic with a focus on coursework,
on both sides,
but I will have to think about moving towards
the research dimension which for us,
researchers and lecturers, offers much greater value added.
And I think that could involve
joint publications or joint thesis supervision.
I think these are two extremely important avenues
and we will have
to work on them with
the partners and teaching staff, in terms of contacts on the other side.
Thank you, that was my last question.
Many thanks Mister Bami for talking to us.