Ariane Turcq-Bayle, laureate of the 2023 Entente Cordiale for the Climate scholarships

At the age of seven, I was lucky enough to travel around the world with my parents for a school year. It was an opportunity for me to discover the world and, at a very young age, to become aware of climate change and the erosion of biodiversity, the effects of which were already palpable, from the melting glaciers in Patagonia to the increased drought in northern India. My awareness of the urgent need to preserve our planet in order to protect people has not left me since. 

When the question of higher education arose at the end of secondary school, I chose to follow the path of scientific preparatory classes to obtain the technical foundations that would enable me to understand the mechanisms at work in climate change and the technologies likely to limit them.

After two years of preparatory classes at the Lycée Sainte-Geneviève studying mathematics, physics and chemistry, I entered the Ecole Polytechnique. As the Ecole Polytechnique is a general engineering school, I had the opportunity to broaden what I had learned in the preparatory classes to include other fundamental subjects such as biology, economics and sociology. But the scope of the upheavals underway must be accompanied by a reflection on the ethical issues that underpin an equitable ecological and social transition. That's why I decided to do a degree in philosophy at the University of Paris Nanterre in parallel with my studies at the Ecole Polytechnique.

Deeply convinced that the ecological transition will largely depend on action by the public authorities and regulation by the private sector, I completed my training at X with a major in Public Affairs in order to gain a better understanding of the way in which public policies take account of climate change and work towards the transition.

My desire to pursue a career in environmental issues and to further enrich my engineering studies - in consultancy or in the public sector - has led me to do a Masters in Environmental Policy and Regulation at the London School of Economics. Thanks to this training, I hope to be able to nurture interdisciplinary exchange and strengthen the sometimes difficult dialogue between the scientific sphere, government bodies and the private sector. The Entente Cordiale Fellowship also gives me a wonderful opportunity to help strengthen the links between France and the UK on a subject that must bring us together more than ever. Because a genuine ecological and social transition can only be collective and concerted.