GRENOBLE UNIVERSITY

Grenoble University has been selected by Roberto Amati in relation to the real history of european integration, then enlisted in the UNIVERSITAS category, accompanied by own fact SHEET useful to the comprehension, completed of historical MAPS AND IMAGES or with a direct linking to the related Blog contents dedicated to the aeternitas and the future of Europe.

	FOUNDATION
Year	1339 A.D.
City	Grenoble
Founder	Dauphine Humbert II of Viennois
Where	Dauphiny (Reich Empire)
Originary subjects	law, letters

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	NOWADAYS
State	France
Name	Grenoble Alps University (Université Grenoble Alpes - UGA)
Seates	Domaine Universitaire of Saint-Martin-d'Hères and Gières and Campus GIANT in Grenoble ; Valence , Vienne (Isère) , Les Houches (Haute-Savoie) , the Lautaret Alpine Garden (Hautes-Alpes) , Mirabel (Ardèche)
Degree programs	Degrees , Masters , PhD and season courses in any kind of disciplines
Library	Suzanne Dobelmann library
Collegium	NO
Alumni	Alvéole
Famous teachers	too much...
Famous scholars	too much...
Awards	2 Nobel Prize and Turing recipient

Grenoble University is among the oldest of Europe, created for the first time in 1339 A.D., then for the second in 1542 A.D. and the last in 1896 A.D.: by regrouping the faculties of law, letters and sciences, the University of Grenoble was during the napoleonic epoch part of the Imperial University. It was then divided into 4 institutions after the events of 1968 A.D. (social revolution began at the Sorbone University), before being partially reestablished in its entirety completely in 2020 A.D..

The Grenoble University was founded in 1339 A.D. by Humbert II of Viennois, the last independent ruler of the Dauphiné fief of the Holy Roman Empire: his purpose was to teach civil and canon law, medicine, and the liberal arts and was considered a leader in the Renaissance revival of the classics and development of liberal arts. First lasses took place in rented rooms on Place Saint-André and the university's activities quickly windle at the end of the century. Humbert's actions were inspired by his granduncle Robert 'said the Wise' King of Naples as example of the city university and skillfully developed Naples from a small port into a lavish city and had a reputation of a cultured man and a generous patron of the arts, friends with such great minds as Petrarch, Boccaccio and Giotto. Such rich experience contributed to Humbert's intention to create a university in his own state and to do so he visited Pope Benedict XII to get a papal bull of approval. The duke cared deeply about his students, offering generous aid, protection, and even providing a hundred of them with free housing. But his financial losses during the Smyrniote crusades, Black Death and Dauphiné's attachment to France greatly decreased the activity of the university leading to its closure, since a small mountainous town could not support its activity on its own: in 1452 A.D. happened the abolition of the Grenoble school and the creation of the University of Valence by the Dauphin Louis II (future Louis XI King of France).

The Grenoble University was restored in 1542 A.D. by Francis de Bourbon, Count of St. Pol., at the request of the parliament of Dauphiné and the City's municipal magistrates and the 2 universities were finally reunited 23 years later. At that point Grenoble was an important center of law practice in France, the top of the university education at that epoch: then it happened the new abolition of this school at the request of the Bishop of Valence, Jean de Montluc, and the allocation of its income to the latter. The concurrent University of Valence survived until 1793 A.D. when was abolished by the Convention, after several attempts to transfer it to Grenoble failed again. So in 1806 A.D. was created the Grenoble Law School, became Faculty of Law 2 years later within the Decree that created the Imperial University, under the jurist Benoît Pal first rector of the new academy. In years following there were created the faculties of arts and science and finally in 1816 A.D. happened the installation of the faculties in the former Dominican monastery (called 'la Halle' because of its partial conversion to accommodate this service).

The French Revolution, with its focus on the end to inherited privilege, led to the suppression of most universities in the country because the revolutionaries, universities embodied bastions of corporatism and established interests. Moreover, lands owned by the universities represented a source of wealth and therefore were confiscated, just as the property possessed by the Roman Church. But in 1805–1808 A.D. Napoleon I reestablished faculties of law, letters, and science everywhere while the Bourbon Restoration had temporarily suppressed the Faculty of Letters and the Faculty of Law at the Grenoble University, even if by middle XIX century A.D. the university's activity had begun rapidly developing again thanks to the Preparatory School of Medicine and Pharmacy and the restored Faculty of Arts.

The development of the sciences at the atheneum was spearheaded by the transformation of Grenoble from a regional center to a major supplier of industrial motors and electrical equipment in 1880 A.D., helped by the creation of the society for the development of technical education near the Grenoble University: the faculties were formally inaugurated as the school in the newly constructed Place de Verdun, built by the Parisian architect Honoré Daumet and the city architect Riondet. Students followed significant enrollment growth in the decades creating pressures on the academic infrastructure of the university and in 1888 A.D. happened the creation of the AGEG (Association Générale des Etudiants de Grenoble), so that the Suzanne Dobelmann library helped expand facilities especially those relating to science and medicine. Some years later there was the foundation of the Committee for the Patronage of Foreign Students attached to the Faculty of Letters, which became the University Centre for French Studies (CUEF) of Grenoble (an integration of the CPEE into Stendhal University in 2012 A.D.). In 1909 A.D. started the construction of the buildings of the Polytechnic Institute on a land donated by the industrialist Casimir Brenier and within a decade happened the multiplication of new institutes attached to its faculties: Electrotechnics, which became the Polytechnic Institute after the creation of the School of Papermaking; Alpine Geography; Phonetics; Business Studies; Electrochemistry and Electrometallurgy. At the same time, the Faculty of Letters created two French Institutes abroad in Florence and Naples.

After the Second World War there has been the installation of the CENG (Centre d'Etudes Nucléaires de Grenoble) under Prof. Louis Néel and the creation of the seventh École régionale d'architecture in Grenoble (renamed École nationale supérieure d'architecture de Grenoble). In Sixties followed the presentation of the master plan for the new Saint-Martin d'Hères campus to host the Applied Mathematics building (house of the Jean Kunzmann's IBM computer), the creation of the mixed Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy in Grenoble and the foundation of the Scientific Campus together with the construction of the CNRS (National Centre for Scientific Research) buildings, the creation of the IUT of Grenoble on an experimental basis, with the departments of Mechanical engineering, Energy, Electrical engineering, Computer science and Business management, which in May 1968 A.D. was divided into two separate institutions (IUT 1 (now 1) and IUT B (now 2)).

Recent history: in the aftermath of the May 1968 A.D. events in France and the Faure law, many French universities were subdivided by both area of study and political ideology, so the Grenoble University was separated into 4 specialized institutions: Grenoble 1 - Université scientifique et médicale de Grenoble, known as Joseph Fourier University; Grenoble 2 - Université des sciences sociales de Grenoble, renamed Université Pierre Mendès France; Grenoble 3 - Université des langues et lettres de Grenoble, renamed Stendhal University; 4 - Institut national polytechnique de Grenoble, later Institut polytechnique de Grenoble or Grenoble INP. In 2013 A.D. started a movement for reunification of universities in Grenoble and Joseph Fourier University, Pierre Mendès-France University and Stendhal University merged under the name of the Université Grenoble Alpes. Then in 2020 A.D., the Grenoble Institute of Technology (Grenoble-INP), the Grenoble Institute of Political Studies, the ENSAG School of Architecture and the Community Université Grenoble Alpes merged with the University Grenoble Alpes. Finally, in 2023 A.D. the French Parliament granted the university the status of grand établissement.

The excellence of the site in research, training and innovation and the effectiveness of the cooperation between the stakeholders allowed the Grenoble University to obtain the 'Initiative of Excellence' (Idex) label in 2016 A.D., a prestigious approval distinguishing a dozen university sites in France. In 2019 A.D. the EPE ('Établissement Public Expérimental') named 'Université of Grenoble Alpes' was formed from the Communauté Université Grenoble Alpes (ComUE), the Université Grenoble Alpes, the Grenoble INP (INPG), the Sciences Po Grenoble (IEPG) and the Grenoble's National School of Architecture (ENSAG): the ComUR disappeared and its collective missions had been taken over by the new institution that integrates the 3 schools.

With its 56,000 students and 2,900 PhDs, Université Grenoble Alpes is a major multidisciplinary university of France. In the field of Education, the UGA Idex project has the following ambition: strengthen the attractiveness of the university by improving its visibility and that of its diplomas, support innovative teaching and learning practices, improve the interface with cultural and socio-economic partners to ensure that the educational offering meets the needs of the labour market, in particular through interdisciplinary study programs. Welcoming international audiences to support internationalization (IDEX): the purpose of UGA's International Students & Scholars Office (ISSO) is to facilitate the reception of all international students, PhD students, visitors and their families throughout their stay. For that reason IDEX Université Grenoble Alpes has launched a programme aimed at initiating innovative and transformative teaching & learning approaches also developing 'learning-by-doing' platforms and devices. These new pedagogical approaches focus on students (promoting an active, autonomous attitude to teaching) and digital tools: examples include approaches based on flipped classroom, skilled-based or problem-based approached, hybridization (face-to-face/distance articulation), MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses), SPOC (Small Private Online Courses), devices facilitating interaction, etc.. The projects strengthened the links between education and research, in particular with the Cross Disciplinary Programs (CDP) and LabEx. In order to increase the visibility of the projects and encourage the dissemination of best practices, the projects were presented at dedicated events organised 2018/2019 A.D. ('Rencontres FormIdex').

Nowadays the Université Grenoble Alpes (UGA) is home to more than 9,700 international students each year and has collaborations with more than 300 universities around the world. Thanks to the Idex project, UGA has built or strengthened structuring international partnerships that are strategic for the atheneum and its main research partners: its academic divisions and research units are part of a very long tradition of collaboration with prestigious international institutions. Its partnerships have been strengthened along several lines: on a European scale, with universities developing high-level research activity and with which student exchanges and scientific collaborations have been established for many years (University of Oxford, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Universidad de Barcelona, Swansea University); Grenoble University is also a member of the European University 'UNITE!' since its creation in 2019 A.D. through the Erasmus+ call of the European Commission; at the level of the African continent, with the aim of developing relations with French-speaking universities and strengthening collaborations in research and education, cooperations are runnning with the Université Mohamed V and UIR Rabat in Morocco, UCAD and Université Gaston Berger of Senegal; at the global level, partnership are running with renowned universitieslike the Tsukuba University in Japan, the NTU of Taiwan, UFRGS, UNESP and a research agreement with FAPESP in Brazil, the CalTech of United States and more recently the McMaster assisted by a collaboration with MITACS, and two partnerships under discussion with Waterloo and Toronto in Canada. This initiative is supported by IDEX Université Grenoble Alpes.

Grenoble University is member of: the European University Association (EUA), the European Association for International Education; the Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie composed of 118 countries sharing the French language; the Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie (AUF) brings together nearly 1000 universities, grandes écoles, university networks involved in the economic, socio-cultural and environmental development of member states; the CESAER, European network of science and technology universities, positioned as the network of major European universities of excellence which "through education, research and innovation, contribute to the development of societies open to knowledge and have a significant impact on science, technology, the economy and society as a whole"; the Alliance Campus Rhodanien, with the aim to consolidate scientific cooperation between the UGA, the University of Geneva (UNIGE), the University of Applied Sciences of Western Switzerland (HES-SO), the University of Lausanne (UNIL) and the University of Grenoble (UL); the CLUSTER (Consortium Linking Universities of Science and Technology for Teaching and Research); the MAGNA CHARTA, a collaboration of rectors at the service of the European peoples and observatory.

Université Grenoble Alpes (UGA) research teams and partners from research organizations are actively involved in numerous international laboratories and structuring research projects abroad, where they develop strategic scientific collaborations, and contribute to UGA's international visibility and attractiveness. International research laboratories (IRL), formerly International Joint Units (UMI) (previous CNRS nomenclature): IRLs are laboratories located on a single international platform, where partner institutions jointly conduct research activities within a shared scientific framework. These laboratories are structured around the significant and lasting presence of scientists from a limited number of French and foreign research institutions (only one foreign partner country).

There is a vast choice of sports activities that Grenoble University can offer to its students whatever their objective, they can practice on their own, with a club or under the supervision of a physical education teacher and an accredited athletics specialist. These are non-accredited classes. It is also possible to obtain ECTS credits from your sports activities when taken as an 'optional' university unit. Students can take part in university championships, whether in a group or individual sport. University competitions (local, national and international) are organized by the French Federation of Universit Sports (FFSU) and La Ligue Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes.

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