Sorbonne University () is a public research university in Paris, France. The institution's legacy reaches back to the Middle Ages in 1257 when the College of Sorbonne was established by Robert de Sorbon as a constituent college of the University of Paris, one of the first universities in Europe. Its current iteration was formed in 2018 by the merger of Paris-Sorbonne University (Paris IV) and the Université Pierre et Marie Curie (Paris VI).
Sorbonne University is one of the most sought after universities by students and researchers from France, Europe, and the French speaking countries. Most notably, Marie Skłodowska-Curie, who came from Poland in 1891 and joined the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Paris, was also the first woman to become a professor at the Sorbonne. Marie Skłodowska-Curie and her husband Pierre Curie are considered the founders of the modern-day Faculty of Science and Engineering of Sorbonne University. As of 2021, Sorbonne University claimed that its alumni and professors have won 33 Nobel Prizes, six Fields Medals, and one Turing Award.
History
College of Sorbonne
Robert de Sorbon (1201–1274), chaplain to King Louis IX (Saint Louis), observed the difficulties experienced by poor "schoolchildren" in achieving the rank of doctor. In February 1257, he had a house (domus) officially established which he intended for a certain number of secular clergy who, living in common and without concern for their material existence, would be entirely occupied with study and teaching. This house was named the college of Sorbonne.
The old slogan of the establishment, "Sorbonne University, creators of futures since 1257", refers to this date. The college of Sorbonne was closed along with all the other colleges of the former University of Paris in 1793.
The college of Sorbonne was located on the site of the current Sorbonne building, shared between Sorbonne University and Panthéon-Sorbonne University.
Faculty of Humanities of Paris, "the Sorbonne"
Based at the Sorbonne, the University of Paris Faculty of Humanities (commonly known as the Sorbonne because of its location) was created by the decree of 17 March 1808 on the organisation of the Imperial University of France.George Weisz, The emergence of modern universities in France, 1863–1914 (Princeton University Press, 2014).
Under the Bourbon Restoration, the faculty welcomed an average of 1,000 to 1,500 students a year, rising to 2,000 under the July Monarchy. But the number of teaching staff remained limited: between 1809 and 1878, only 51 professors taught at the Faculty of Humanities.
Following the promulgation of laws on 28 April 1893, giving civil personality to the bodies formed by the union of several faculties of an academy, and 10 July 1896, giving the name of university to the bodies of faculties, the new University of Paris was created in 1896 through the merger of the Faculty of Science, the Faculty of Humanities, the Faculty of Law, the Faculty of Medicine, the Faculty of Protestant Theology (created in 1877 and transformed into a free faculty in 1905), and the École supérieure de pharmacie. It was inaugurated on 19 November 1896 by its president, Félix Faure.
Faculty of Sciences of Paris The Faculty of Sciences in Paris was opened in 1811 following the creation of the Imperial University of France, and was housed in the Collège du Plessis, in the Latin Quarter of Paris.
In 1826, the faculty moved to the Sorbonne. It remained there until 1962, when it moved to the Jussieu Campus. The Jussieu campus is now the main site of the Sorbonne University Faculty of Science and Engineering.Sabine Delanes, « Le campus de Jussieu », dans Christian Hottin (dir.), Universités et grandes écoles à Paris : les palais de la science, Paris 1999 . At the same time, in 1927 it opened a satellite campus at Orsay, in the south of Paris, which would later become the current Paris-Saclay University, as well as a satellite campus at Orléans in 1960.
Splitting of the University of Paris In 1971, the University of Paris, including its humanities and science faculties, split into several interdisciplinary universities. Some, including the University of Paris-Sorbonne, retained the name "Sorbonne" and premises in the historic centre of the University of Paris, which had until then been mainly devoted to the faculties of Humanities and Sciences.
The University of Paris-VI, later renamed as "UPMC", is created from the majority of the teaching and research units of the Faculty of Sciences of Paris (the others joining the universities of Paris-VII Denis Diderot (now Université Paris Cité), Paris-Saclay University in Orsay, Paris-XII and Paris-XIII in Villetaneuse) and part of the units of the Faculty of Medicine of Paris (the others joining the universities of Paris-V René Descartes (now Université Paris Cité), Paris-VII Denis Diderot and Paris-XIII).
Reunification of the University of Paris-Sorbonne and UPMC In 2010, some of the direct successors of the faculties of the University of Paris created the Sorbonne Universities Association. The following universities, members of the university system, decided to merge into Sorbonne University in 2018:
Paris-Sorbonne University (Paris IV) (1971–2017), formerly a constituent part of the faculty of humanities of the University of Paris. Université Pierre et Marie Curie (UPMC or Paris VI) (1971–2017), formerly a constituent part of the faculty of sciences and of the school of medicine of the University of Paris.
At the same time, the Sorbonne Universities Association was renamed the Sorbonne University alliance; it includes the following institutions for academic cooperation:
University of Technology of Compiègne (1972– ) INSEAD National Museum of Natural History Centre international d'études pédagogiques (International Centre for Pedagogical Studies) Pôle supérieur d'enseignement artistique Paris Boulogne-Billancourt Four research institutes
As part of the reforms of French Higher Education, on 19 March 2018, the international jury called by the French Government for the "Initiative d'excellence" (IDEX) confirmed the definite win of Sorbonne University. Consequently, Sorbonne University won an endowment of €900 million with no limit of time. This is the first higher education institution in Paris region to win such an endowment. The university was established by a decree issued 21 April 2017, taking effect 1 January 2018.
Faculties Sorbonne University has three faculties: Arts and Humanities, Science and Engineering, and Health Sciences.
Arts and humanities The Sorbonne University Faculty of Arts and Humanities provides studies in arts, languages, letters, and human and social sciences, and is the largest in France. Fields such as history, geography, languages, linguistics, musicology, philosophy, classical and modern literature, foreign literature and civilisations, and the history of art and archaeology are part of this faculty.
Science and engineering
The Sorbonne Faculty of Science and Engineering is a major research institution in France. It can be considered the successor in direct line to the Faculty of Science of the University of Paris with the Paris-Saclay Faculty of Sciences.
It has 79 laboratories in the Paris region, most in association with the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS). Some of the most notable institutes and laboratories include the Institut Henri Poincaré (Mathematics), Institut d'astrophysique de Paris (Astrophysics), LIP6 (Informatics / Computer Science), Institut des systèmes intelligents et de robotique (Robotics), Institut de mathématiques de Jussieu – Paris Rive Gauche (foundations of Mathematics, shared with University Paris Cité) and the Laboratoire Kastler-Brossel (Quantum Physics, shared with PSL University).
Health sciences
The Sorbonne University Faculty of Health Sciences, in association with the Greater Paris University Hospitals (AP-HP), manages the AP-HP Sorbonne University Hospital Group (Hôpital Charles-Foix, Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital, Hôpital Fondation Rothschild, Hôpital Saint-Antoine, Hôpital Tenon, Hôpital Armand-Trousseau, Hôpital de La Roche-Guyon) and the Quinze-Vingts National Ophthalmology Hospital, promoting multidisciplinary research, and training doctors and other health professionals.
Law (external tuition) There is no law school as such in Sorbonne University. In 1971, most of the law professors from the Faculty of Law and Economics of the University of Paris decided to restructure it as a university, called Panthéon-Assas University Paris (after the two main campuses of the Paris Law Faculty: place du Panthéon and rue d'Assas campuses). Panthéon-Assas now provides legal studies for Sorbonne University as an independent university.
Another law school, the Panthéon-Sorbonne University School of Law (also a spin-off of the Faculty of Law and Economics of the University of Paris) also exists in Paris, but has no connection with Sorbonne University.
Campuses
Main campuses
Sorbonne
Sorbonne University's historical campus is in the historic central Sorbonne building, located at 47 rue des Écoles, in the historic Latin Quarter university campus. The building is the undivided property of the 13 successor universities of the University of Paris, managed by the Chancellerie des Universités de Paris. Besides the monuments of the Cour d'Honneur, the Sorbonne Chapel and the Grand Amphithéâtre, the building houses the Sorbonne University Faculty of Arts and Humanities, the Academy of Paris Rectorat, the Chancellerie des Universités de Paris, and part of the universities Panthéon-Sorbonne, Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris Cité and the École Nationale des Chartes as well as the École Pratique des Hautes Études that are constituent schools of PSL University.
Before the 19th century, the Sorbonne occupied several buildings. The chapel was built in 1622 by the then-Provisor of the University of Paris, Cardinal Richelieu, during the reign of Louis XIII. In 1881, politician Jules Ferry decided to convert the Sorbonne into one single building. Under the supervision of Pierre Greard, Chief Officer of the Education Authority of Paris, Henri-Paul Nénot constructed the current building from 1883 to 1901 that reflects a basic architectural uniformity. The integration of the chapel into the whole was also Nénot's work with the construction of a cour d'honneur. The Sorbonne building is generally reserved for undergraduate students in their third year and graduate students in certain academic disciplines. Only students in Semitic studies, regardless of level, take all their classes at the Sorbonne campus.
The Sorbonne Library is an inter-university library of the Panthéon-Sorbonne University, Sorbonne Nouvelle University, Sorbonne University, Paris Cité University, under the administration of Panthéon-Sorbonne. It is open exclusively to undergraduate students in their third year and graduate students. With the former archives of the now-defunct University of Paris, 2,500,000 books, 400,000 of them ancient, 2,500 historical manuscripts, 18,000 doctoral dissertation papers, 17,750 past and current French and international periodicals and 7,100 historical printing plates, the Sorbonne Library is the largest university library in Paris and was entirely refurbished in 2013.
The Sorbonne University Library's Arts and Humanities Department (French: Pôle Lettres de la Bibliothèque de Sorbonne Université), part of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, offers its students and teaching staff access to 18 libraries and thematic collections. The catalog includes 600,000 books, 350,000 e-books, 60,000 issues of online periodicals and 165 databases.
Pierre and Marie Curie (formerly Jussieu)