Collège_de_France,_place_Marcelin-Berthelot,_Paris_5e

The Collège de France (), formerly known as the ''Collège Royal'' or as the ''Collège impérial'' founded in 1530 by François I, is a higher education and research establishment ('' grand établissement'') in

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan ar ...

. It is located in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. ...

near La Sorbonne. The Collège de France is considered to be France's most prestigious research establishment. Research and teaching are closely linked at the Collège de France, whose ambition is to teach "the knowledge that is being built up in all fields of literature, science and the arts". It offers high-level courses that are

free Free may refer to: Concept * Freedom, having the ability to do something, without having to obey anyone/anything * Freethought, a position that beliefs should be formed only on the basis of logic, reason, and empiricism * Emancipate, to procur ...

, non-degree-granting and

open Open or OPEN may refer to: Music * Open (band), Australian pop/rock band * The Open (band), English indie rock band * ''Open'' (Blues Image album), 1969 * ''Open'' (Gotthard album), 1999 * ''Open'' (Cowboy Junkies album), 2001 * ''Open'' (Y ...

to all without condition or registration. This gives it a special place in the French intellectual landscape.

Overview

The Collège is considered to be France's most prestigious research establishment. As of 2021, 21 Nobel Prize winners and 9 Fields Medalists have been affiliated with the Collège. It does not grant degrees. Each professor is required to give lectures where attendance is free and open to anyone. Professors, about 50 in number, are chosen by the professors themselves, from a variety of disciplines, in both

science Science is a systematic endeavor that Scientific method, builds and organizes knowledge in the form of Testability, testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earli ...

and the

humanities Humanities are academic disciplines that study aspects of human society and culture. In the Renaissance, the term contrasted with divinity and referred to what is now called classics, the main area of secular study in universities at th ...

. The motto of the Collège is ''Docet Omnia'',

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power ...

for "It teaches everything"; its goal is to "teach science in the making" and can be best summed up by

Maurice Merleau-Ponty Maurice Jean Jacques Merleau-Ponty. (; 14 March 1908 – 3 May 1961) was a French phenomenological philosopher, strongly influenced by Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger. The constitution of meaning in human experience was his main interest an ...

's phrase: "Not acquired truths, but the idea of freely-executed research" which is inscribed in golden letters above the main hall. It is an associate member of University PSL. Cour_intérieure_Collège_de_France,_Paris_5e

Cour_intérieure_Collège_de_France,_Paris_5e

The Collège has research laboratories and one of the best research libraries of Europe, with sections focusing on

history History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr ...

with rare books,

social sciences Social science is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of society, societies and the Social relation, relationships among individuals within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the field of sociology, the o ...

and also chemistry and

physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which rel ...

. As of June 2009, over 650 audio podcasts of Collège de France lectures are available on iTunes. Some are also available in English and Chinese. Similarly, the Collège de France's website hosts several videos of classes. The classes are followed by various students, from senior researchers to PhD or master students, or even bachelor students. Moreover, the "leçons inaugurales" (first lesson) are important events in Paris intellectual and social life and attract a very large public of curious Parisians.

History

The Collège was established by King Francis I of France, modeled after the

Collegium Trilingue The Collegium Trilingue, often also called Collegium trium linguarum, or, after its creator Collegium Buslidianum (French: Collège des Trois Langues, Dutch: Dry Tonghen), was founded in 1517 under the patronage of the humanist, Hieronymus van Bus ...

in Louvain, at the urging of Guillaume Budé. Of humanist inspiration, the school was established as an alternative to the Sorbonne to promote such disciplines as

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...

(the first teacher being the celebrated scholar Janus Lascaris) and Mathematics. Initially called ''Collège royal'', and later ''Collège des trois langues'' (Latin, ancient Greek and Hebrew), ''Collège national'', and ''Collège impérial'', it was named Collège de France in 1870. In 2010, it became a founding associate of PSL Research University (a community of Parisian universities).

Administrators

* 1800-1823: Louis Lefèvre‑Gineau * 1824-1838: Antoine Isaac Silvestre de Sacy * 1838-1840: Louis Thénard * 1840-1848: Jean-Antoine Letronne * 1848-1852: Jules Barthélemy-Saint-Hilaire * 1852-1853:

Xavier de Portets Xavier or Xabier may refer to: Place * Xavier, Spain People * Xavier (surname) * Xavier (given name) * Francis Xavier (1506–1552), Catholic saint ** St. Francis Xavier (disambiguation) * St. Xavier (disambiguation) * Xavier (footballer, b ...

* 1853-1854:

Jacques Rinn Ancient and noble French family names, Jacques, Jacq, or James are believed to originate from the Middle Ages in the historic northwest Brittany region in France, and have since spread around the world over the centuries. To date, there are over ...

* 1854-1873: Stanislas Julien * 1873-1883: Édouard René de Laboulaye * 1883-1892:

Ernest Renan Joseph Ernest Renan (; 27 February 18232 October 1892) was a French Orientalist and Semitic scholar, expert of Semitic languages and civilizations, historian of religion, philologist, philosopher, biblical scholar, and critic. He wrote infl ...

* 1892-1894: Gaston Boissier * 1894-1903: Gaston Paris * 1903-1911: Émile Levasseur * 1911-1929:

Maurice Croiset Maurice may refer to: People * Saint Maurice (died 287), Roman legionary and Christian martyr * Maurice (emperor) or Flavius Mauricius Tiberius Augustus (539–602), Byzantine emperor * Maurice (bishop of London) (died 1107), Lord Chancellor and ...

* 1929-1936: Joseph Bédier * 1937-1955: Edmond Faral * 1955-1965: Marcel Bataillon * 1966-1974:

Étienne Wolff Étienne Wolff (Auxerre, 12 February 1904 – Paris, 18 November 1996) was a French biologist, specialising in experimental and teratological embryology. He led the Société zoologique de France from 1958 and was elected to the French Academy of ...

* 1974-1980: Alain Horeau * 1980-1991:

Yves Laporte Yves may refer to: * Yves, Charente-Maritime, a commune of the Charente-Maritime department in France * Yves (given name), including a list of people with the name * ''Yves'' (single album), a single album by Loona * ''Yves'' (film), a 2019 Fr ...

* 1991-1997: André Miquel * 1997-2000:

Gilbert Dagron Gilbert Dagron (January 26, 1932 - August 4, 2015, Paris, France) was a French historian, Byzantine scholar, professor at the College de France (1975-2001), president of the International Association for Byzantine Studies, member of the Academy o ...

* 2000-2006: Jacques Glowinski * 2006-2012:

Pierre Corvol Pierre Corvol (born 18 August 1941 in Boulogne-Billancourt) is a French doctor and biology researcher. He was director of the Collège de France from 2006 to August 2012. Early life and education Corvol studied at the Lycée Condorcet in Pari ...

* 2012-2015:

Serge Haroche Serge Haroche (born 11 September 1944) is a French-Moroccan physicist who was awarded the 2012 Nobel Prize for Physics jointly with David J. Wineland for "ground-breaking experimental methods that enable measuring and manipulation of individual ...

* 2015-2019:

Alain Prochiantz Alain Prochiantz (born 17 December 1948 in Paris) is a neurobiology researcher and professor at the Collège de France, of which he became director from 2015 to 2019. Biography Alain Prochiantz is a former student of the École normale supérie ...

* Since 2019:

Thomas Römer Thomas Christian Römer (born 13 December 1955, in Mannheim) is a German-born Swiss biblical scholar, exegete, philologist, professor, and Reformed minister. After teaching at the University of Geneva, he became professor of the Old Testamen ...

Faculty

The faculty of the Collège de France currently comprises fifty-two Professors, elected by the Professors themselves from among Francophone scholars in subjects including mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, history, archaeology, linguistics, oriental studies, philosophy, the social sciences and other fields. Two chairs are reserved for foreign scholars who are invited to give lectures. Notable faculty members include

, awarded with

Nobel Prize in Physics ) , image = Nobel Prize.png , alt = A golden medallion with an embossed image of a bearded man facing left in profile. To the left of the man is the text "ALFR•" then "NOBEL", and on the right, the text (smaller) "NAT•" then " ...

in 2012. Notably, 8 Fields medal winners have been affiliated with the College. Past faculty include: *

Raymond Aron Raymond Claude Ferdinand Aron (; 14 March 1905 – 17 October 1983) was a French philosopher, sociologist, political scientist, historian and journalist, one of France's most prominent thinkers of the 20th century. Aron is best known for his ...

* Jean François Boissonade de Fontarabie * Etienne Baluze *

Roland Barthes Roland Gérard Barthes (; ; 12 November 1915 – 26 March 1980) was a French literary theorist, essayist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician. His work engaged in the analysis of a variety of sign systems, mainly derived from Western popul ...

Simon Baudichon Simon Baudichon, known as Simon Baldichius, was a 16th century French physician, originally from the diocese of Le Mans, professor at the Collège royal from 1567 to 1577. He died in 1584. Biography Bachelor on 12 March 1554. he obtained his lic ...

* Émile Benveniste *

Henri Bergson Henri-Louis Bergson (; 18 October 1859 – 4 January 1941) was a French philosopherHenri Bergson. 2014. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Retrieved 13 August 2014, from https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/61856/Henri-Bergson

* Claude Bernard *

Marcelin Berthelot Pierre Eugène Marcellin Berthelot (; 25 October 1827 – 18 March 1907) was a French chemist and Republican politician noted for the ThomsenBerthelot principle of thermochemistry. He synthesized many organic compounds from inorganic subst ...

* Yves Bonnefoy *

Pierre Boulez Pierre Louis Joseph Boulez (; 26 March 1925 – 5 January 2016) was a French composer, conductor and writer, and the founder of several musical institutions. He was one of the dominant figures of post-war Western classical music. Born in Mon ...

Pierre Bourdieu Pierre Bourdieu (; 1 August 1930 – 23 January 2002) was a French sociologist and public intellectual. Bourdieu's contributions to the sociology of education, the theory of sociology, and sociology of aesthetics have achieved wide influence ...

Jean-François Champollion Jean-François Champollion (), also known as Champollion ''le jeune'' ('the Younger'; 23 December 17904 March 1832), was a French philologist and orientalist, known primarily as the decipherer of Egyptian hieroglyphs and a founding figure in t ...

Jean-Pierre Changeux Jean-Pierre Changeux (; born 6 April 1936) is a French neuroscientist known for his research in several fields of biology, from the structure and function of proteins (with a focus on the allosteric proteins), to the early development of the ner ...

* Roger Chartier *

Anne Cheng Anne Cheng (; born 11 July 1955) is a French Sinologist who teaches at the Collège de France and specializes in Chinese history and the history of Chinese philosophy. Pablo Ariel Blitstein, the author of "A new debate about alterity," descr ...

Anne Cheng Biographie
" Collège de France. Retrieved on 11 December 2013. *

Claude Cohen-Tannoudji Claude Cohen-Tannoudji (; born 1 April 1933) is a French physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical un ...

* Alain Connes * Yves Coppens *

Georges Cuvier Jean Léopold Nicolas Frédéric, Baron Cuvier (; 23 August 1769 – 13 May 1832), known as Georges Cuvier, was a French naturalist and zoologist, sometimes referred to as the "founding father of paleontology". Cuvier was a major figure in na ...

* Marie Henri d'Arbois de Jubainville *

Jean Darcet Jean d'Arcet or Jean Darcet (7 September 1724 – 12 February 1801) was a French chemist, and director of the porcelain Porcelain () is a ceramic material made by heating substances, generally including materials such as kaolinite, in a ...

* Jacques-Arsène d'Arsonval * Pierre-Gilles de Gennes * Émile Deschanel *

Georges Duby Georges Duby (7 October 1919 – 3 December 1996) was a French historian who specialised in the social and economic history of the Middle Ages. He ranks among the most influential medieval historians of the twentieth century and was one of Franc ...

* Georges Dumézil *

Lucien Febvre Lucien Paul Victor Febvre (, ; 22 July 1878 – 11 September 1956) was a French historian best known for the role he played in establishing the Annales School of history. He was the initial editor of the '' Encyclopédie française'' together wi ...

* Oronce Fine *

Michel Foucault Paul-Michel Foucault (, ; ; 15 October 192625 June 1984) was a French philosopher, historian of ideas, writer, political activist, and literary critic. Foucault's theories primarily address the relationship between power and knowledge, and ho ...

* Ferdinand André Fouqué * Etienne Fourmont * Marc Fumaroli * Jean-Baptiste Gail * Charles Gide * Étienne Gilson * Jerzy Grotowski * Martial Gueroult * Ian Hacking *

Eugène Auguste Ernest Havet Eugène Auguste Ernest Havet (April 11, 1813 – December 21, 1889), French scholar, was born in Paris. He was the father of Pierre Antoine Louis Havet and Julien Havet. Educated at the Lycée Saint-Louis and the Ecole Normale, he was for many ...

* Barthélemy d'Herbelot * Françoise Héritier * Frédéric Joliot *

Alfred Jost Alfred Jost (1916–1991) was a French endocrinologist, and an early researcher in the field of fetal endocrinology. He is known for his discovery of the Müllerian inhibitor, now called anti-Müllerian hormone (AMH) or Müllerian inhibiting ...

* Stanislas Julien *

René Labat Jean René Labat (19 February 1892 – 8 March 1970) was a French high jumper The high jump is a track and field event in which competitors must jump unaided over a horizontal bar placed at measured heights without dislodging it. In its moder ...

* Edouard Rene Lefebvre de Laboulaye * Sylvestre François Lacroix * René Laennec * Paul Langevin * Henri Lebesgue * René Leriche * Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie *

Claude Lévi-Strauss Claude Lévi-Strauss (, ; 28 November 1908 – 30 October 2009) was a French anthropologist and ethnologist whose work was key in the development of the theories of structuralism and structural anthropology. He held the chair of Social Anthro ...

André Lichnerowicz André Lichnerowicz (January 21, 1915, Bourbon-l'Archambault – December 11, 1998, Paris) was a noted French differential geometer and mathematical physicist of Polish descent. He is considered the founder of modern Poisson geometry. Biography H ...

Alfred Loisy Alfred Firmin Loisy (; 28 February 18571 June 1940) was a French Roman Catholic priest, professor and theologian generally credited as a founder of modernism in the Roman Catholic Church. He was a critic of traditional views of the interpretation ...

Edmond Malinvaud Edmond Malinvaud (25 April 1923 – 7 March 2015) was a French economist. He was the first president of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences. Trained at the École Polytechnique École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French ...

* Henri Maspero * Louis Massignon *

Marcel Mauss Marcel Mauss (; 10 May 1872 – 10 February 1950) was a French sociologist and anthropologist known as the "father of French ethnology". The nephew of Émile Durkheim, Mauss, in his academic work, crossed the boundaries between sociology and ...

Jules Michelet Jules Michelet (; 21 August 1798 – 9 February 1874) was a France, French historian and an author on other topics whose major work was a history of France and its culture. His Aphorism, aphoristic style emphasized his Anti-clericalism, anti-cle ...

Adam Mickiewicz Adam Bernard Mickiewicz (; 24 December 179826 November 1855) was a Polish poet, dramatist, essayist, publicist, translator and political activist. He is regarded as national poet in Poland, Lithuania and Belarus. A principal figure in Polish ...

* Jean-Baptiste Morin * Alexis Paulin Paris *

Paul Pelliot Paul Eugène Pelliot (28 May 187826 October 1945) was a French Sinologist and Orientalist best known for his explorations of Central Asia and his discovery of many important Chinese texts such as the Dunhuang manuscripts. Early life and care ...

* François Pétis de la Croix *

Guillaume Postel Guillaume Postel (25 March 1510 – 6 September 1581) was a French linguist, astronomer, Christian Kabbalist, diplomat, polyglot, professor, religious universalist, and writer. Born in the village of Barenton in Normandy, Postel made his way ...

* Edgar Quinet * Petrus Ramus * Henri Victor Regnault * Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat * Louis Robert *

Jean-Baptiste Say Jean-Baptiste Say (; 5 January 1767 – 15 November 1832) was a liberal French economist and businessman who argued in favor of competition, free trade and lifting restraints on business. He is best known for Say's law—also known as the law o ...

Victor Scialac Victor Scialac ( Syriac: Naṣrallāh Shalaq al-'Āqūrī) was a Maronite priest who collaborated with French Orientalist François Savary de Brèves in the 17th century. Victor Scialac was a former students of the Maronite College in Rome, and tog ...

Jean-Pierre Serre Jean-Pierre Serre (; born 15 September 1926) is a French mathematician who has made contributions to algebraic topology, algebraic geometry, and algebraic number theory. He was awarded the Fields Medal in 1954, the Wolf Prize in 2000 and the ...

* François Simiand *

Gabriel Sionita Gabriel Sionita ( Syriac: Jibrā'īl aṣ-Ṣahyūnī; 1577 at Ehden in Lebanon – 1648 in Paris) was a learned Maronite priest, famous for his role in the publication of the 1645 Paris Polyglot of the Bible. Life Gabriel Sionita was born Jibr ...

* André Vaillant *

Paul Valéry Ambroise Paul Toussaint Jules Valéry (; 30 October 1871 – 20 July 1945) was a French poet, essayist, and philosopher. In addition to his poetry and fiction (drama and dialogues), his interests included aphorisms on art, history, letters, mu ...

* François Vatable * Jean-Pierre Vernant *

Claire Voisin Claire Voisin (born 4 March 1962) is a French mathematician known for her work in algebraic geometry. She is a member of the French Academy of Sciences and holds the chair of Algebraic Geometry at the Collège de France. Work She is noted for h ...

* Jules Vuillemin * Harald Weinrich * Jean-Christophe Yoccoz * Jean YoyotteNécrologie de M. Jean Yoyotte (1927-2009) par Christiane Zivie-Coche
/ref> * Don Zagier

References

External links

Collège de France website
English home page
Alphabetic list of all professors since establishment in 1530
{{DEFAULTSORT:College De France Education in Paris Grands établissements 1530 establishments in France Educational institutions established in the 1530s Buildings and structures in the 5th arrondissement of Paris