Created on 1 January 2022, the new ‘University of Lille’ institution brings together renowned faculties, institutes and schools.
This new institution is the result of the shared ambition of several key players in the region’s higher education, research and innovation sectors to join forces to create:
- a university of excellence and inclusiveness, positioning itself as one of Europe’s most recognised institutions over the next ten years,
- a major player in the ongoing revitalisation of its region, able to use the tools of knowledge and expertise to meet the challenges of global change − social, economic and ecological.
Project participants
The University of Lille is made up of two types of member:
- the member faculties, institutes,
- academic units and schools, and the member institutions (ENSAIT, ENSAPL, ESJ Lille and Sciences Po Lille), which remain separate legal entities and, as such, retain a number of important prerogatives ensuring their autonomy and the continuity of their brand.
[Video] EPE quel fonctionnement pour la future université de Lille ? (How will the future University of Lille work?)
How will the future University of Lille function as an experimental public institution?
The statutes of the experimental public institution have been adopted by the governing councils of five higher education institutions in the Lille metropolitan area. From 1 January 2022, they will form a new institution that will operate under the name University of Lille. Our shared ambition is to train the next generation for the careers of the future and do our part to address the challenges facing our society through the diversity and synergies found in the courses we offer, the quality of our research and innovation.
To ensure that the principles of university democracy and institutional cohesion are reflected in its operations, the University of Lille will be structured around two levels of responsibility.
- A central level, which defines the collective strategy of this new institution, and ensures that it is managed and implemented effectively,
- and a decentralised level that co-constructs, contributes to defining the institution’s collective strategy, and manages day-to-day choices and decision-making.
The University of Lille is governed by the President, who is assisted by a Management Committee, a Governing Council, a Scientific Council and a Study and University Life Council. Members of the governance councils of the member institutions and their own respective councils sit on these various councils and committees.
- The Management Committee prepares the institution’s overall policy and strategy.
- The Governing Council takes votes on the recommendation of the Management Committee, and determines the institution’s strategic guidelines in the fields of research, education, university life and international relations.
- The Scientific Council defines the principles governing the implementation of research and innovation policies.
- The Study and University Life Council defines the principles governing the implementation of study and university life policies.
The aim of having a decentralised level is to enable each institution to take measures that fall within its own area of expertise.
Together, they will form a large, agile university capable of expanding its capacity for shared initiatives and opening up to new development opportunities. Firm in its belief that knowledge and full-time and continuing education have a role to play in civil society, the University of Lille is committed to an exacting concept of public service, the debating of ideas, scientific culture and critical thinking, to ensuring equal access for its students and future careers for its graduates, and to promoting and supporting the changes in occupations through lifelong learning.
The University of Lille is a new major player in the world of academia and a key partner for our regon’s social, economic and political stakeholders.
A university for global transitions
Our society is at a turning point, technologically, economically, health-wise, socially and environmentally. These challenges are particularly acute in the Hauts-de-France region, which is undergoing an economic, social and ecological transition that is commensurate with its past as a key region for industry and mining. This transition implies transformations in our ways of being, thinking and acting, and a capacity for continuous adaptation by individuals and organisations.
With its wide range of expertise and know-how, the University of Lille has a key role to play in meeting these challenges. That’s why its project was designed around the theme of global transition. The aim is to initiate new courses of action to reinvent progress, and create new learning pathways based on the metropolitan and regional ecosystem.
An in-depth transformation
Through its programme Investissements d’avenir (Future Investments Programme; PIA), the French government has awarded the University of Lille and its partners an I-Site label, which is used to identify universities that develop distinctive, internationally recognised scientific assets in specific focus areas, and make them a driving force and anchor point for their development strategy and partnerships with the economic world. Obtaining the label in 2017 set in motion a process to transform higher education in the region, of which the creation of the University of Lille on 1 January 2022 is a major milestone.
A new identity
To illustrate the transition it is undergoing and to which it intends to contribute, the University of Lille has adopted a new logo for 2022. Three ‘L’s for Lille form the ‘U’ of Université, a slanting ‘U’ which is resolutely turned towards the future.