Frequently Asked Questions

INSA Group (National Institutes of Applied Sciences) is the leading French group of engineering institutes. It is a public institution. Every year, more than 10% of the engineering graduates in France graduate from the INSA Group. The Institut National des Sciences Appliquées INSA of Toulouse is an international, pluri-disciplinary French “Grande Ecole.” INSA is recognized for the excellence of its education, which attracts students of a high academic level. Today, there are 96,000 alumni present in all economic sectors, all over the world. Lien: https://www.insa-alumni.org/

The Advanced Master’s (“Mastère Spécialisé” in French) is a French post-graduate specialization degree created in 1986 by the French “Conférence des Grandes Écoles.”

It is a full-time, one-year program (75 ECTS) which includes formal teaching and an internship. It is usually aimed at professionals who already have a master's degree or a four-year Bachelor’s degree, plus at least three years of experience.

The participants acquire new skills either to specialize or expand their knowledge and experience in a domain where the private sector has identified a real need.

All lectures, discussions, project and internship defenses, etc., are fully taught in English.
Free courses are offered to learn French. This additional knowledge is useful for daily life and internships. It is an advantage for a career in a French company.

Three essential characteristics can be highlighted:

• Variety of disciplines considered, as safety science requires addressing many facets of engineering, management and human sciences.
• Proximity to the industrial environment: courses given by experts, immediate application of new knowledge (case studies and projects), and an internship to consolidate all the knowledge acquired.
• Sharing of experiences between participants from various industrial sectors and countries with different cultures.

The training fee is 9000 Euros for the year.

We do not offer scholarships as we have chosen to keep training fees to a minimum for all.

Participants can apply themselves for the various scholarships offered by the French government, their country, private companies, foundations, etc.

The training is organized in two periods:

• October to March: nine training modules
• April to September: 6-month internship.

The 9 modules take place one after the other over 3 weeks each. This allows the participants to focus their attention on the theme of the module during these 3 weeks (lectures, case studies, projects).

Our ultimate goal is to provide you with skills, not grades. For this reason, most assessments are based on projects carried out in groups of about three students. The defence of these projects allows for exchanges and thus to extend your expertise.

Yes, of course. We have put in place four means for this:

• We receive internship proposals from companies and distribute them to you.
• We help you to study the internship offers available on the companies' websites.
• A course explains how to write a CV and a cover letter for French companies.
• Mock interviews are available to prepare for the interviews.

We welcomed participants from five continents:

• Africa: Algeria, Benin, Cameroon, Congo, Egypt, Gabon, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Madagascar, Morocco, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Tunisia, Uganda.
• Americas: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Peru, Venezuela.
• Asia: Afghanistan, Bahrain, China, India, Indonesia, Iran, Japan, Kazakhstan, Lebanon, Malaysia, Pakistan, South Korea, Syria, Thailand, Vietnam.
• Europe: Andorra, Austria, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, United-Kingdom, former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.
• Oceania: Australia, New-Caledonia.

Toulouse is the European capital of aeronautics and space. Many international companies are based there. The inhabitants are therefore of diverse origins: about 10,000 German residents live in Toulouse, 8,000 Spanish residents, 4,000 English residents. The University of Toulouse welcomes 15,000 foreign students each year.

To welcome all these foreign students, the University of Toulouse offers two very effective tools:

The Toulbox to book accommodation, open a bank account, obtain transport tickets, etc. before your arrival. 

The Welcome desk, whose staff speaks English (and Spanish, Chinese, etc.) to easily manage relations with the various organisations (prefecture, etc.).

We are currently developing on-line resources (videos, textbooks, quizzes, surveys…) for the Advanced Master’s degree in “Safety Engineering and Management”.

These online Units free up time and allow you and us to carry out additional face-to-face activities with real added value including: case studies accompanied by a professional for several days, presentation of industrial sectors and specific trades by engineers in position, search for an internship, and construction of your personal professional project.

These resources are under construction and their use in training will be very gradual.

However, our objective is not to offer an online diploma course. Indeed, if the online resources actually provide the knowledge, only the activities shared in the classroom transform this knowledge into skills.