Collège de France

Collège de France
The , formerly known as the or as the Collège impérial founded in 1530 by François I, is a higher education and research establishment in France. It is located in Paris near La Sorbonne. The is considered to be France's most prestigious research establishment.
Research and teaching are closely linked at the , 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, nondegree-granting and open to all without condition or registration. This gives it a special place in the French intellectual landscape.
Overview
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 and the humanities. The motto of the Collège is Docet Omnia, Latin for "It teaches everything"; its goal is to "teach science in the making" and can be best summed up by Maurice Merleau-Ponty'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.
The Collège has research laboratories and one of the best research libraries of Europe, with sections focusing on history with rare books, humanities, social sciences and also chemistry and physics.
As of June 2009, over 650 audio podcasts of lectures are available on iTunes. Some are also available in English and Chinese. Similarly, the '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 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, Ancient Greek (the first teacher being the celebrated scholar Janus Lascaris) and Mathematics. Initially called , and later Collège des trois langues (Latin, ancient Greek and Hebrew), Collège national, and Collège impérial, it was named 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
1853–1854: Jacques Rinn
1854–1873: Stanislas Julien
1873–1883: Édouard René de Laboulaye
1883–1892: Ernest Renan
1892–1894: Gaston Boissier
1894–1903: Gaston Paris
1903–1911: Émile Levasseur
1911–1929: Maurice Croiset
1929–1936: Joseph Bédier
1937–1955: Edmond Faral
1955–1965: Marcel Bataillon
1966–1974: Étienne Wolff
1974–1980: Alain Horeau
1980–1991: Yves Laporte
1991–1997: André Miquel
1997–2000: Gilbert Dagron
2000–2006: Jacques Glowinski
2006–2012: Pierre Corvol
2012–2015: Serge Haroche
2015–2019: Alain Prochiantz
Since 2019: Thomas Römer
Faculty
The faculty of the 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 Serge Haroche, awarded with Nobel Prize in Physics in 2012. Notably, 8 Fields medal winners have been affiliated with the College.
Past faculty include:
Raymond Aron
Jean François Boissonade de Fontarabie
Etienne Baluze
Roland Barthes
Simon Baudichon
Émile Benveniste
Henri Bergson
Claude Bernard
Marcelin Berthelot
Yves Bonnefoy
Pierre Boulez
Pierre Bourdieu
Jean-François Champollion
Jean-Pierre Changeux
Roger Chartier
Anne Cheng
Claude Cohen-Tannoudji
Alain Connes
Yves Coppens
Georges Cuvier
Marie Henri d'Arbois de Jubainville
Jean Darcet
Jacques-Arsène d'Arsonval
Pierre-Gilles de Gennes
Émile Deschanel
Georges Duby
Georges Dumézil
Lucien Febvre
Oronce Fine
Michel Foucault
Ferdinand André Fouqué
Etienne Fourmont
Marc Fumaroli
Albert Gabriel
Jean-Baptiste Gail
Charles Gide
Étienne Gilson
Jerzy Grotowski
Martial Gueroult
Ian Hacking
Eugène Auguste Ernest Havet
Barthélemy d'Herbelot
Françoise Héritier
Frédéric Joliot
Alfred Jost
Stanislas Julien
René Labat
Edouard Rene Lefebvre de Laboulaye
Sylvestre François Lacroix
René Laennec
Paul Langevin
Henri Lebesgue
René Leriche
Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie
Claude Lévi-Strauss
André Lichnerowicz
Alfred Loisy
Edmond Malinvaud
Henri Maspero
Louis Massignon
Marcel Mauss
Maurice Merleau-Ponty
Jules Michelet
Adam Mickiewicz
Jean-Baptiste Morin
Alexis Paulin Paris
Paul Pelliot
François Pétis de la Croix
Guillaume Postel
Edgar Quinet
Petrus Ramus
Henri Victor Regnault
Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat
Louis Robert
Jean-Baptiste Say
Victor Scialac
Jean-Pierre Serre
François Simiand
Gabriel Sionita
André Vaillant
Paul Valéry
François Vatable
Jean-Pierre Vernant
Claire Voisin
Jules Vuillemin
Harald Weinrich
Jean-Christophe Yoccoz
Jean Yoyotte
Don Zagier
See also
Institut de France
Raymond Couvègnes
References
External links
Collège de France website, English home page
Education in Paris
Grands établissements
1530 establishments in France
Educational institutions established in the 1530s
Buildings and structures in the 5th arrondissement of Paris