Among the major projects carried out in the last few years (2017-2021) stands out the creation and implementation of a guidance-providing roadmap document dedicated to frame research work in Master’s and PhD programs. The main objectives of this roadmap are:

• to “clearly establish the collaboration between the student and his or her advisers providing transparency and open communication guarantees”
• to “structure and give an account of discussions between the student and advisers throughout the research project”

Long-lasting actions were carried out with Polytechnique to improve the scope and management of our research student community. The roadmap document was officially approved and spread to the whole student community as of summer 2021. The document is available on Moodle “My PhD skills“. From then on, the association ensures the efficient use of this guide and its implementation throughout all engineering departments.

AÉCSP stands with the student community whose mental health was severely struck because of the Covid crisis from 2020, therefore the 2020-2021 team wrote a mental health action plan to be carried out under the next mandate with the goal to provide actions and tasks helping limit the impact of the coronavirus crisis on mental health. Furthermore, this action plan was entailed by the conclusions of the “Sous ta façade” (Under your skin) survey (the full report is available here, in French) conducted by UEQ (the Quebec Student Union) from 2018 to 2020 underlining the importance of mental health issues in the Quebec student community.

The Quebec Experience Program is a procedure helping with long-term immigration to Quebec, including for graduate students obtaining their diploma. In 2020, the Ministry of Immigration, French teaching and Intergation (MIFI) of Quebec introduced a revision of PEQ that dramatically restrics the criteria to access this program. The reform namely required an additional year of work experience after graduate studies without acknowledging internships, student jobs or research work as adequate professional experiences. thus increasing the delays in requesting permanent residency for all international students. AÉCSP therefore mobilized itself in 2020 to defend its many international students and protest this refrom we deemed unfair. Our association implemented several ways to adress this issue including writing a letter to the Polytechnique director and co-signing a UEQ letter to the ministry Unfortunately, this campaign failed to alter the content of the reform put in place by the government. Discussions are still ongoing about this project.