Toulouse Capitole University


Toulouse Capitole University is a public university in Toulouse, France. It is one of the three universities of the city of Toulouse, in southwestern France. The university, presided by Hugues Kenfack, focuses on social sciences, law, political science, economics and administration. An active member of the Communauté d'universités et établissements de Toulouse, it became an experimental public institution on January 1, 2023.
WWW ut-capitole.fr𝕏 UT1CapitoleFB ut1capitoleYT universitetoulousecapitol...IG ut1capitoleIN universite-toulouse-1-cap...

History

Toulouse Capitole University is one of the several so-called 'successor' institutions of the University of Toulouse, which was the second university created in France in 1229 after the Sorbonne was founded. The university originally included four faculties: theology, canon law, civil law and arts. The medical school was created in 1257. The university was closed in 1793 as the French Revolution abolished royal universities.
At the end of the Second Empire, the first four faculties co-existed, but the most important was the law school, which contained three-quarters of the students and the most renowned teachers. However, the Faculties of Toulouse suffered due to underfunding of French higher education in the provinces. At the same time, freedom of higher education was proclaimed in France, leading to the founding in 1877 of the Catholic University of Toulouse, a private not-for-profit institution recognised as being in the public interest. In the 1880s Luis Liard and Ernest Lavisse gave enough autonomy to the faculties so the municipality could help those State Faculties, which were named the University of Toulouse in 1896.

In 1902, Marguerite Dilhan, first woman to practice law and to plead before a criminal court in France, obtained her diploma in .
Yet the Edgar Faure acts divided the University of Toulouse into three establishments:
  • Toulouse 1 University of Social Sciences ; now known as Toulouse Capitole University.
  • Toulouse 2 University of Literature and Human Sciences;
  • Toulouse 3 University Paul Sabatier of Sciences and Health.
Only the Toulouse Capitole University remains on the historical site of the town center. In September 2009, the Toulouse 1 University of Social Sciences became the Toulouse 1 Capitole University.

Academics

Toulouse Capitole University educates more than 20,000 students every year, over 15% of which are international students. Students may enroll in a Bachelors program directly after obtaining a Baccalauréat, or the equivalent high school diploma for international students. Unlike the French Grandes écoles, public university education is open enrollment, tuition is often more affordable, and registration does not require attendance at a post-high school preparatory school. Degrees from French universities are recognized world-wide and awarded by the Ministry of National Education (France).
Since 2020, the University of Toulouse I Capitole is a member of the European University which aims to provide citizens and students with the necessary skills to meet the major societal challenges already underway. The aim of this project is to pool the skills and expertise of the different partners in order to provide high quality education, common curricula and increased student mobility, as well as a European research network. The consortium of this project is composed of six other universities: University of Mannheim, Luiss Guido Carli, NHH Norwegian School of Economics, Tilburg University, University of National and World Economy, and Vienna University of Economics and Business.
The institution's academic priorities focus on three areas: international degrees, double-language degrees, and degrees with a high potential for professional integration. The different academic disciplines of UT1 are:

Faculties

  • Economics
  • Business Administration and Management
  • Law
  • Informatics
  • Technology

Departments

  • Physical and Sports Activities
  • Mathematics
  • Department of Languages and Cultures

Instruction in English

The university offers a number of degree programs in management, economic, law, and technology taught in English-only. Higher education degrees in France are organized into three levels thus facilitating international mobility: the Licence / Bachelor's, Master's, and Doctorate degrees. A Bachelor's degree requires the completion of 180 ECTS credits; a Master's, requires an additional 120 ECTS credits. In 2022, annual tuition for a bachelor's degree taught in English-only was: €262 for students from anywhere in the world.
  • Global Management
  • International Management
  • Finance
  • International Marketing of Innovation
  • Econometrics and Empirical Economics
  • Economics of Markets and Organizations
  • Economics & Ecology
  • Environmental and Natural Resources Economics
  • Public Policy and Development
  • Data Science for Social Sciences
  • Mathematics and Economic Decision
  • MIAGE on Innovative Information Systems
  • International Aviation Law
  • Comparative & European Private International Law
  • International Economic Law
  • Economics
  • Management

Research

The University of Toulouse I Capitole and Toulouse School of Economics professor Jean Tirole became a Nobel laureate in 2014. The internationalization of research is the other facet of the university's European and international strategy. The research centers are involved in numerous projects and scientific cooperation networks with foreign partners, particularly Canadian and Japanese. The University Toulouse Capitole is the home of many laboratoires and research instituts:Centre de droit des affaires - Center for business lawCentre toulousain d'histoire du droit et des idées politiques - Center for history and political scienceInstitut de droit privé - Institute for private lawInstitut de mathématique de Toulouse - Institute of mathematicsInstitut de recherche en informatique de Toulouse - Institute of research into information technologyInstitut des études juridiques de l'urbanisme et de la construction - Institute for state law in urbanismInstitut du droit de l'espace, des territoires et de la communication - Institute for Space, Territories, Culture and Communications LawInstitut Maurice Hauriou - Institute for public law

Location

UT Capitole is located on four sites in the city center and in the cities of Montauban and Rodez. University buildings cover an area of 78,000 m2 and are available to 17,000 students. On the two sites of the Arsenal and the Anciennes Facultés, a 2 minutes' walk from Place du Capitole, are located most lecture halls and classrooms as well as the main library on the Toulouse campus.
In the city center, there are the Anciennes Facultés where the Toulouse School of Management is located, as well as amphitheaters and two libraries. The Anciennes Facultés are located at 2, rue Albert-Lautmann.
Also in the city center, the Arsenal, where the Faculty of Law and Political Science and the European School of Law are located, and most of the amphitheaters and classrooms, as well as the university's administrative services. This site also includes the Arsenal library, the university's main library. The Arsenal is located at 2, rue du Doyen-Gabriel-Marty. The campus also houses the Arsenal university restaurant as well as student residences.
Also in the center of Toulouse, the Manufacture des Tabacs, between the Garonne river and the Brienne canal is where most research and library centres are to be found. The Manufacture is located at 21, allée de Brienne and is situated on the other side of the Brienne canal from the two previously mentioned sites.
Two satellite campuses of the University Toulouse Capitole are located in Montauban and Rodez. In the city of Montauban, the University Center of Tarn-et-Garonne is located on Boulevard Montauriol, near the city center. The University of Toulouse Capitole offers the full undergraduate degree in law at this site. There is a library and a university restaurant on the campus. The University Institute of Technology of Rodez is located at 50 avenue de Bordeaux in Rodez, Aveyron. The IUT provides a 3-year university education, offering several Bachelor of Technology or undergraduate degrees, and emphasizing a technological approach combining theory and practice. The IUT has modern premises and equipment: 1 documentation center, 1 amphitheater, 1 technology hall, 2 learning labs, and 2 multimedia laboratories.

Partnerships

Toulouse Capitole University is a founding member of the Federal University of Toulouse Midi-Pyrénées, the association of universities and higher education institutions, which is reconstituting the collective Université de Toulouse. Membership includes all large campuses in Toulouse: Jean Jaurès, Paul Sabatier University, Sciences Po Toulouse, INSA Toulouse, ISAE-SUPAERO, as well as the Grande école Toulouse Business School and the seven Grandes écoles of the National Polytechnic Institute of Toulouse. The university and Toulouse Business School jointly award a EFMD-Accredited Ph.D. in management, faculty and students have access to the TBS Research Centre, and TBS research faculty serve on the board of directors. As a collective higher education structure, the Federal University of Toulouse Midi-Pyrénées is the fourth largest in France with over 130,000 students, faculty, and staff.
Toulouse Capitole University is also associated with the Catholic University of Toulouse, particularly for legal studies.

Libraries and Learning Centers

The University of Toulouse I Capitole Library is the heir to the former university library created in 1879. Initially an inter-university library, its social sciences section was constituted as a Collective Service of Documentation in 1995. It is now made up of four libraries spread across the university campus.
The Arsenal library, representative of the modern architectural movement(Brutalism), was built in 1972 by the architects Paul de Noyers and Noël Le Maresquier. It offers 900 reading places. In addition to the 45,000 volumes belonging to the prestigious old collection and the volumes inherited from the Law-Literature section, the collections are now specialized in the disciplines taught at the university.
In 1996, a 450-seat library was installed in the renovated premises of the former Toulouse Tobacco Factory, which is now listed as a historical monument. Two other libraries make up Toulouse 1 Capitole's library facilities: the Garrigou library located in the heart of the historic building of the old Faculties and the Boutaric library. These libraries collaborate with the documentation centers of the university's teaching and research units.
In terms of written and documentary heritage, 320,000 e-books complete a collection of 568,000 printed works, 57,000 theses and dissertations. Over 80,500 online journals are added to the 390 print journal subscriptions; while some 75 specialized databases allow for in-depth bibliographic research.

Faculty

Doctorat ''honoris causa''

Since the founding of today's Université Toulouse Capitole, countless professors, deans, directors, presidents of faculties, institutes, universities and regions, advisors and ministers have been awarded honorary doctorates by the university.
This was notably the case for José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, Spain's former socialist prime minister, honored in 2015. The same year, Vassilios Skouris, then President of the European Court of Justice, also received the title. After the DHC awarded on June 9, 2023 to Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, and the German Judge of the Constitutional Court, Dieter Grimm was awarded a DHC on November 28, 2024, and Spanish writer Javier Cercas on December 8, 2025.

Notable alumni