University of Strasbourg


The University of Strasbourg is a public research university located in Strasbourg, France, with over 52,000 students and 3,300 researchers. Founded in the 16th century by Johannes Sturm, it was a center of intellectual life during the Age of Enlightenment.
In the 1970s, the old university was reorganized into three distinct institutions, which were consolidated in 2009. The current University of Strasbourg comprises 35 academic faculties, schools, and institutes, as well as 71 research laboratories spread across six campuses, including the historic site in the Neustadt.
Throughout its existence, Unistra alumni, faculty, or researchers have included 18 Nobel laureates, two Fields Medalists and a wide range of notable individuals in their respective fields. Among them are Goethe, statesman Robert Schuman, historian Marc Bloch and several chemists such as Louis Pasteur.

History

The university emerged from the Jean Sturm Gymnasium, a gymnasium of Lutheran and humanist inspiration, founded in 1538 by Johannes Sturm in the Free Imperial City of Straßburg. It was transformed to a university in 1621 and elevated to the ranks of a royal university in 1631. Among its earliest university students was Johann Scheffler who studied medicine and later converted to Catholicism and became the mystic and poet Angelus Silesius.
The Lutheran German university still persisted even after the annexation of the city by King Louis XIV in 1681, but mainly turned into a French speaking university during the French Revolution.
The university was refounded as the German Kaiser-Wilhelm-Universität in 1872, after the Franco-Prussian War and the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine to Germany provoked a westwards exodus of Francophone teachers. During the German Empire the university was greatly expanded and numerous new buildings were erected because the university was intended to be a showcase of German against French culture in Alsace. In 1918, Alsace-Lorraine was returned to France, so a reverse exodus of Germanophone teachers took place.
During the Second World War, when France was occupied, personnel and equipment of the University of Strasbourg were transferred to Clermont-Ferrand. In its place, the short-lived German Reichsuniversität Straßburg was created.
In 1971, the university was subdivided into three separate institutions:
Following a national reform of higher education, these universities merged on 1 January 2009, and the new institution became one of the first French universities to benefit from greater autonomy.

Buildings

The university campus covers a vast part near the center of the city, located between the "Cité Administrative", "Esplanade" and "Gallia" bus-tram stations.
Modern architectural buildings include: Escarpe, the Doctoral College of Strasbourg, Supramolecular Science and Engineering Institute, Atrium, Pangloss, PEGE and others. The student residence building for the Doctoral College of Strasbourg was designed by London-based Nicholas Hare Architects in 2007. The structures are depicted on the main inner wall of the Esplanade university restaurant, accompanied by the names of their architects and years of establishment.
The administrative organisms, attached to the university, are located in the "Agora" building.

International partnerships

The University of Strasbourg is a member of several European networks focused on research, student exchange, and the establishment of joint degrees:
  • Eucor – The European Campus, created in 1989 at the initiative of the University of Basel, which brings together the universities of the Upper Rhine region, namely the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, the University of Basel, the University of Freiburg, the University of Upper Alsace and the University of Strasbourg, these universities possessing numerous links due to their history and geographical proximity.
  • League of European Research Universities which brings together twenty-two of the most renowned universities in Europe and of which it is one of the founding members.
  • EUniverCities network, aimed at promoting exchanges between universities in medium-sized cities, to foster the visibility of the university as a place of knowledge and innovation in the city.
  • Utrecht Network which is a grouping of inter-university cooperation in Europe promoting, among other things, student exchange, joint degrees and research cooperation.

    Nobel laureates

  • Adolf von Baeyer
  • Karl Ferdinand Braun
  • Paul Ehrlich
  • Hermann Emil Fischer
  • Jules Hoffmann
  • Albrecht Kossel
  • Martin Karplus
  • Max von Laue
  • Charles Louis Alphonse Laveran
  • Jean-Marie Lehn
  • Otto Loewi
  • Otto Fritz Meyerhof
  • Louis Néel
  • Wilhelm Röntgen
  • Jean-Pierre Sauvage
  • Albert Schweitzer
  • Hermann Staudinger
  • Pieter Zeeman

    Notable people

Rankings