A history that's interwoven with the industrial development of Nantes

The school was founded with the key goal of contributing to the construction of the twentieth century manufacturing sector in the region, known at the time as the "Loire Inférieure". In the Nantes-Saint-Nazaire area, this development was initially driven by the demand for merchant ships. Shipbuilding (Dubigeon, ACL) in turn stimulated the rise of metallurgy (Batignolles locomotives, Basse-Indre forges,  J.J. Carnaud ironworks, J. Paris metallic constructions). This industrial fabric, ripped apart in the Second World War, was reconstituted during the subsequent 30 year-boom period, with shipbuilding and aeronautics (Caravelle, Mirage IV, Concorde, Alouette), boiler-making (Saunier -Duval) before stabilizing around leading companies like EADS, Airbus and STX. Metallurgy is now the leading industrial employer in Loire-Atlantique. The Pays de la Loire region, extended to incorporate the Vendée, has a network of equipment manufacturers and SMEs specialized in shipbuilding, automobile, aeronautics, foundry, nuclear elements, etc..

In this context, the primary role of the school is to train engineers to take part in this industrial development. At the same time, professional centers were set up in the 1920s by the metallurgical industries around Nantes (Basse-Indre, Bouguenais, Batignolles) before coming together as professional associations (AFPSM, ASFO and AFPI), and then entering into a partnership structure in 1991, the ISGTA, which became ITII in 1999, with whom the school trains engineers through degree apprenticeship programmes in Public Works and Mechanical Engineering. In order to contribute to the improvement of their processes and to the development of new techniques and products, industrialists in the region look to the school to generate innovation, with the students it trains fully involved and fueling this innovation.