Sorbonne Paris North University () is a

public university A public university, state university, or public college is a university or college that is State ownership, owned by the state or receives significant funding from a government. Whether a national university is considered public varies from o ...

based in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

. It is one of the thirteen universities that succeeded the

University of Paris The University of Paris (), known Metonymy, metonymically as the Sorbonne (), was the leading university in Paris, France, from 1150 to 1970, except for 1793–1806 during the French Revolution. Emerging around 1150 as a corporation associated wit ...

in 1968. It is a multidisciplinary university located in north of Paris, in the municipalities of

Villetaneuse Villetaneuse () is a commune in the Seine-Saint-Denis department, in the northern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris. Heraldry Population Education Primary and secondary schools The commune has four prescho ...

, Saint-Denis, La Plaine Saint-Denis,

Bobigny Bobigny () is a commune, or town, in the northeastern suburbs of Paris, Île-de-France, France. It is located from the centre of Paris. Bobigny is the prefecture (capital city) of the Seine-Saint-Denis department, as well as the seat of the ...

and

Argenteuil Argenteuil () is a Communes of France, commune in the northwestern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the Kilometre Zero, center of Paris. Argenteuil is a Subprefectures in France, sub-prefecture of the Val-d'Oise Departments of France, ...

. Successively named "Université Paris XIII", "Université Paris-Nord", "Université Paris 13 Paris Nord", then "Université Paris 13", it has been known by several names during the last half century. Most recently it was renamed "Université Sorbonne Paris Nord" on January 1, 2020. The University Sorbonne Paris Nord is a major teaching and research center located north of Paris. It has five campuses, spread over the two departments of Seine-Saint-Denis and Val d'Oise: Villetaneuse, Bobigny, Saint-Denis, the Plaine Saint-Denis and Argenteuil. The university has more than 25,000 students in initial or continuing training, in many fields: Health, Medicine and Human Biology - Letters, Languages, Humanities and Societies - Law, Political and social sciences - Communication sciences - Economics and management.

History

Creation

The University Paris-13 was created after the desire of the Rector of the Academy of Paris in the early 1960s, of opening a third faculty of science at

. In September 1969 was also created at Saint-Denis, a science-based university center with status of faculty, in the University of Paris, called ''University Centre Saint-Denis – Villetaneuse''. In 1970, with the application of Law Faure reform, was decided to create 13 autonomous multidisciplinary universities, which replaced the faculties of the University of Paris, and the faculty of Villetaneuse became the University of Paris XIII. The new university was designed by the architects Fainsilber and Anspach, as part of the renovation of the town of Villetaneuse. The first stage was the construction of the literary and legal center, expected to receive approximately 5000 students. The first building, completed in October 1970, allowed the first 1500 students in December 1500, of first-year of law, economics and humanities. In 1972, the University of Paris XIII completed the building of two libraries, the Library of the University Centre of Saint-Denis and the Library of Villetaneuse university center. Following the dismantling of the University of Paris, the chancellor of universities of Paris owns the buildings and land of the establishment. The Chancery of Creteil universities provides budgetary control and the University of legality.

Name of the university

Decree No. 70-1174 of 17 December 1970 on the public, scientific and cultural character of universities gave the university the name of Paris-XIII. Since its establishment, the university has been referred to informally as "University of Paris-13 North" or "University Paris-Nord". On 16 May 2014, the Board of Directors decided to rename the university: University Paris-13 (''Université Paris 13'' in the statutes) in compliance with the law on the Liberties and Responsibilities of Universities. In the 2019 re-organization of the Paris university system, the university announced it would start styling itself as "Université Sorbonne Paris Nord".

Presidents

Campus

The university premises are spread over five campuses: * Villetaneuse Campus * at Saint-Denis, the Technology University Institute of Paris XIII (Institut universitaire de technologie de Paris XIII or IUT in French) * La Plaine Saint-Denis Campus * Bobigny Campus, holds a Technology Institute and Medicine * Argenteuil Campus The university offers also law and physical education studies in Athens, Greece, in affiliation with IdEF College.

Villetaneuse

The Villetaneuse campus is the main and historic campus of the university. It has the larger number of students and research units. This campus holds also the presidential buildings and central services of the university. On the side of the search, besides the Office of Research and Doctoral Studies, the campus is home to the administrative services of graduate schools Erasmus and

Institut Galilée An institute is an organizational body created for a certain purpose. They are often research organisations (research institutes) created to do research on specific topics, or can also be a professional body. In some countries, institutes ca ...

, and also of the research units. The campus made significant investments since 2010 to improve the transport connections, by building a new station known as

Gare de Villetaneuse-Université Gare is the word for "station" in French and related languages, commonly meaning railway station Gare can refer to: People * Gare (surname), surname * The Gare Family, fictional characters in the novel '' Wild Geese'' by Martha Ostenso Places * ...

. A new library was opened on the campus in spring 2016. The IUT homes a

cleanroom A cleanroom or clean room is an engineered space that maintains a very low concentration of airborne particulates. It is well-isolated, well-controlled from contamination, and actively cleansed. Such rooms are commonly needed for scientifi ...

dedicated to

nanotechnology Nanotechnology is the manipulation of matter with at least one dimension sized from 1 to 100 nanometers (nm). At this scale, commonly known as the nanoscale, surface area and quantum mechanical effects become important in describing propertie ...

research.

Bobigny

The Bobigny campus is dedicated to medicine, health and human biology, and has the UFR SMBH and the IUT of Bobigny. The campus is side of the

Avicenna hospital Ibn Sina ( – 22 June 1037), commonly known in the West as Avicenna ( ), was a preeminent philosopher and physician of the Muslim world, flourishing during the Islamic Golden Age, serving in the courts of various Iranian rulers. He is oft ...

with which the university is in agreement to form the

Avicenna Ibn Sina ( – 22 June 1037), commonly known in the West as Avicenna ( ), was a preeminent philosopher and physician of the Muslim world, flourishing during the Islamic Golden Age, serving in the courts of various Iranian peoples, Iranian ...

University Hospital A teaching hospital or university hospital is a hospital or medical center that provides medical education and training to future and current health professionals. Teaching hospitals are almost always affiliated with one or more universities a ...

, main training center in medicine department of

Seine-Saint-Denis () is a department of France located in the Grand Paris metropolis in the region. In French, it is often referred to colloquially as ' or ' ("ninety-three" or "nine three"), after its official administrative number, 93. Its prefecture is Bobi ...

. The campus also host several research units related to medicine (mostly joint research units with the

INSERM The (Inserm, ) is the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research. History and organisation Inserm was created in 1964 as a successor to the French National Institute of Health. Inserm is the only public research institution ...

) and the UFR SMBH but also some units or humanities teams whose research theme is related to medicine (LEPS for therapeutic patient education, or UTRPP for psychopathology). This is the second university campus.

Saint-Denis

The campus at Saint-Denis houses the Technology university institute (Institut universitaire de technologie or IUT in French).

Academics

The university offers Bachelors, Masters and Doctorate degrees in line with the

Bologna Process file:Bologna-Prozess-Logo.svg, 96px, alt=Logo with stylized stars, Logo file:Bologna zone.svg, alt=Map of Europe, encompassing the entire Bologna zone, 256px, Bologna zone The Bologna Process is a series of ministerial meetings and agreements b ...

. Bachelor and Masters courses are organized into various schools. * School of Literature, Languages, and Humanities (LLHS) * School of Law, Politics and Social Sciences (DSPS) * School of Communication (COM) * Galilee Institute * School of Health, Medicine and Human Biology (SMBH)

Doctoral Schools

The university awards around 110 doctorates each year and welcomes around 700 doctoral scholars on exchange from other institutions. There are three doctoral schools: * ''Ecole Doctorale Erasme'' for humanities, social sciences, law and economics. * ''Ecole Doctorale Galilée'' for sciences * ''Ecole doctorale médicament, toxicologie, chimie, imageries'' (MTCI) for medicine, toxicology, chemistry and graphics, run with

Paris Descartes University Paris Descartes University (), also known as Paris V, was a French public university located in Paris. It was one of the inheritors of the historic University of Paris, which was split into 13 universities in 1970. Paris Descartes completely merg ...

within the framework of the Sorbonne Paris Cité federation.

Notable people

Faculty

Claude Goasguen Claude Goasguen (12 March 1945 – 28 May 2020) was a French politician who served as a member of the National Assembly for Paris from 1993 to 1995 and again from 1997 until his death in 2020. A member of The Republicans, he also briefly was Min ...

(1976–1986) Claude Goasguen official website biography
*

Loïc Vadelorge Loïc Vadelorge, born 26 November 1964, graduate from École Normale Supérieure Lettres et Sciences Humaines, is a French historian, teacher of contemporary history at the Paris 13 University, after having been Senior Lecturer at the Versailles ...

Bruno Le Roux Bruno Le Roux (; born 2 May 1965) is a French politician of the Socialist Party (France), Socialist Party who served as the Minister of the Interior of France from December 2016 to March 2017. Political career Le Roux was a member of the Natio ...

– member of the

National Assembly In politics, a national assembly is either a unicameral legislature, the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or both houses of a bicameral legislature together. In the English language it generally means "an assembly composed of the repr ...

and former

Minister of the Interior An interior minister (sometimes called a minister of internal affairs or minister of home affairs) is a cabinet official position that is responsible for internal affairs, such as public security, civil registration and identification, emergency ...

(1988–1998) *

Ngô Bảo Châu Ngô Bảo Châu (, born June 28, 1972) is a Vietnamese-French mathematician at the University of Chicago, best known for proving the fundamental lemma for automorphic forms (proposed by Robert Langlands and Diana Shelstad). He is the first Vie ...

– mathematician and 2010

Fields Medal The Fields Medal is a prize awarded to two, three, or four mathematicians under 40 years of age at the International Congress of Mathematicians, International Congress of the International Mathematical Union (IMU), a meeting that takes place e ...

ist (1998–2005)

Alumni

Nicușor Dan Nicușor Daniel Dan (; born 20 December 1969) is a Romanian politician, mathematician, and civic activist serving as the sixth president of Romania since 2025. He previously served as the mayor of Bucharest from 2020 to 2025 and as a member of ...

(born 1969) - president of

Romania Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern and Southeast Europe. It borders Ukraine to the north and east, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Bulgaria to the south, Moldova to ...

(2025-); PhD in mathematics *

Julien Dray Julien Dray (born 5 March 1955 in Oran, French Algeria) is a French politician. He is a member of the French Socialist Party, member of the regional council of Île-de-France and was a member of the National Assembly of France between 1988 and ...

(born 1955) – member of the

Laurent Fignon Laurent Patrick Fignon (; 12 August 1960 – 31 August 2010) was a French professional road bicycle racer who won the Tour de France in 1983 and 1984, as well as the Giro d'Italia in 1989. He held the title of FICP World No. 1 in 1989. Fignon came ...

(1960-2010) – cyclist and two-time winner of the

Tour de France The Tour de France () is an annual men's multiple-stage cycle sport, bicycle race held primarily in France. It is the oldest and most prestigious of the three Grand Tour (cycling), Grand Tours, which include the Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta a ...

* Daniel Goldberg (born 1965) – member of the

Notes and references

External links

Official site
{{Coord, 48.956214, N, 2.341933, E, type:edu_scale:5000_source:ruwiki, display=title Universities and colleges established in 1970 1970 establishments in France Universities descended from the University of Paris