Rails of Time

An inter-university project that uses design thinking as a new way to teach.

Now showingLight WeaversCAFA, Beijing

About the Project

Rails of Time is an inter-university project that applies design thinking to how teaching is designed.

The title is a play on words: "Rails of Time" is both a real route and a link between generations, cultures and traditions. Traveling from one French city to the next, participants find traces of past and present culture and meet the people whose creativity shapes each region.

The project works like a modern travel journal. Students plan the itineraries, make short films, conduct interviews and write up their research, and along the way they get to know the local culture and the people who innovate and create there.

Student films

Short films made in class at our partner universities. Each cohort builds a scenario over a term, then shoots and edits it themselves.

See all films

Project Objectives

Learning in the field
Turn students’ coursework into real fieldwork with towns, companies and local organizations across France.
Creative & media skills
Build interviewing, filmmaking and intercultural skills by documenting real local “heroes.”
Territories in transition
Show how communities and businesses of every size drive cultural, economic and ecological change.
Passing it on
Have Generation U students mentor younger pupils and share their work with the public.

Project Outline

The project runs in stages, each building on the last: students create first, then pass on what they have learned to younger pupils.

Phase 1

Rails of Time: Generation U

This first stage is for students at our partner universities and schools. It is built into their coursework.

Local companies and figures become the "heroes" of the students' films and the subject of their academic work.

Students Involved

KEDGE Business School
CNAM Nouvelle-Aquitaine
IAE Bordeaux

Phase 2

Rails of Time: Junior

This stage is about passing knowledge from one generation to the next. University students become tutors and mentors for middle and high school pupils and guide them through the whole project.