Collège de France

The Collège de France, formerly known as Collège royal, is a major French higher education and research institution, established by François I in 1530. It is located on Place Marcelin-Berthelot in the 5th arrondissement of Paris, in the heart of the Latin Quarter.

Research and teaching are closely linked at the Collège de France, which aims to teach “knowledge as it is being formed in all fields of literature, science, or art”. It offers high-level courses that are free, non-degree-granting, and open to all without conditions or registration. This makes it a unique place in the French university landscape.

Being elected a professor at the Collège de France, i.e., becoming the holder of a chair, is one of the highest distinctions in French higher education. The Collège has about fifty chairs, the subject of which changes according to the latest developments in science (a chair can, for example, be dedicated to literature after having been to mathematics), and whose holder is elected by their peers based on their previous work and not their academic qualifications. They confer upon their holder a particular influence in their discipline, both in France and abroad.

Collège de France is an associate member of Paris Sciences et Lettres University.