University of Strasbourg

The University of Strasbourg (French: Université de Strasbourg, Unistra) is a public research university located in Strasbourg, France, with over 52,000 students and 3,300 researchers. Founded in the 16th century by Jean Sturm, it was an intellectual hotbed during the Age of Enlightenment.

University of Strasbourg

Université de Strasbourg
Palais Universitaire, main building of the former Imperial University of Strasbourg
Type	Public research university
Established	1538; 486 years ago (1538)
Budget	€536 million (2019)[1]
President	Father Michel Deneken
Students	52,144[2]
Doctoral students	2,265[3]
Location	Strasbourg , Grand Est , France
Affiliations	Udice Group, LERU, Utrecht Network AACSB, EFMD, EUCOR
Website	www.unistra.fr

The old university was split into three separate entities during the 1970s, before they merged back together in 2009. The University of Strasbourg is currently composed of 35 academic faculties, schools and institutes, plus 71 research laboratories spread over 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

Johannes Sturm, founder of the university (1539)

The university emerged from a Lutheran humanist German Gymnasium, founded in 1538 by Johannes Sturm in the Free Imperial City of Strassburg. It was transformed to a university in 1621 (German: Universität Straßburg) 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.^[4]

The Lutheran German university still persisted even after the annexation of the city by King Louis XIV in 1681 (one famous student was Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in 1770/71), 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:

• Louis Pasteur University (Strasbourg I)
• Marc Bloch University (Strasbourg II)
• Robert Schuman University (Strasbourg III)

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.^[5]

Buildings

Grand hall of the University Palace, where the first session of the Council of Europe Assembly took place^[6]

See also: Palais Universitaire, Strasbourg; National Academic Library (Strasbourg); and Observatory of Strasbourg

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 (ISIS), Atrium, Pangloss, PEGE (Pôle européen de gestion et d'économie) 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 (Prefecture; CAF, LMDE, MGEL—health insurance; SNCF—national French railway company; CTS—Strasbourg urban transportation company), are located in the "Agora" building.

• 
  The Gallia building, formerly Germania, seat of the Regional Student's Service Centre
• 
  Main Law faculty building of the former Robert Schuman University
• 
  Main building of the university for economic and management studies (AKA : PEGE - Pôle Européen de gestion et d'économie)
• 
  The National and University Library on Place de la République, former Kaiserplatz

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

• Johannes Sturm (1507–1589)
• Johannes Nicolaus Furichius (1602–1633)
• Johann Conrad Dannhauer (1603–1666)
• Angelus Silesius (Johann Scheffler) (1624–1677)
• Philipp Jacob Spener (1635–1705)
• Antoine Deparcieux (1703–1768)
• Johann Hermann (1738–1800)
• Mikhail Illarionovich Kutuzov (1745–1813)
• Johann Peter Frank (1745–1821)
• Dominique Villars (1745–1841)
• Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832)
• Louis Ramond de Carbonnières (1755–1827)
• Maximilian von Montgelas (1759–1838)
• Klemens Wenzel von Metternich (1773–1859)
• Jean Lobstein (1777–1835)
• Georg Büchner (1813–1837)
• Charles Frédéric Gerhardt (1816–1856)
• Emil Kopp (1817–1875)
• Charles-Adolphe Wurtz (1817–1884)
• Auguste Nefftzer (1820–1876)
• August Kayser (*1821–1885)
• Louis Pasteur (1822–1895)
• Adolph Kussmaul (1822–1902)
• Ambroise-Auguste Liébeault (1823–1904)
• Georg Albert Lücke (1829–1894)
• Paul Schützenberger (1829–1897)
• Anton de Bary (1831–1888)
• Friedrich Daniel von Recklinghausen (1833–1910)
• Adolf von Baeyer (1835–1917), Nobel Prize 1905
• Adolf Michaelis (1835–1910)
• Heinrich Wilhelm Gottfried von Waldeyer-Hartz (1836–1921)
• Oswald Schmiedeberg (1838–1921)
• Gustav von Schmoller (1838–1917)
• Paul Laband (1838–1918)
• August Kundt (1839–1894)
• Bernhard Naunyn (1839–1925)
• Friedrich Kohlrausch (1840–1910)
• Rudolph Sohm (1841–1917)
• Heinrich Martin Weber (1842–1913)
• Paul Heinrich von Groth (1843–1927)
• Lujo Brentano (1844–1931)
• Gustav Schwalbe (1844–1916)
• Charles Louis Alphonse Laveran (1845–1922), Nobel Prize 1907
• Wilhelm Röntgen (1845–1923), Nobel Prize 1901
• Harry Bresslau (1848–1926)
• Ernst Remak (1849–1911)
• Josef von Mering (1849–1908)
• Georg Dehio (1850–1932)
• Karl Ferdinand Braun (1850–1918), Nobel Prize 1909
• Hans Chiari (1851–1916)
• Hermann Emil Fischer (1851–1919), Nobel Prize 1902
• Albrecht Kossel (1853–1927), Nobel Prize 1910
• Paul Ehrlich (1854–1915), Nobel Prize 1908
• Emil Cohn (1854–1944)
• Ludwig Döderlein (1855–1936)
• Otto Lehmann (1855–1922)
• Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg (1856–1921)
• Georg Simmel (1858–1918)
• Oskar Minkowski (1858–1931)
• Othmar Zeidler (1859–1911)
• Geerhardus Vos (1862–1949)
• Andreas von Tuhr (1864–1925)
• Pierre Weiss (1865–1940)
• Pieter Zeeman (1865–1943), Nobel Prize 1902
• Eugen Hirschfeld (1866–1946)
• Gustav Anrich (1867–1930)
• Georg Thilenius (1868–1937)
• Gustav Landauer (1870–1919)
• Franz Weidenreich (1873–1948)
• Otto Loewi (1873–1961), Nobel Prize 1936
• Karl Schwarzschild (1873–1916)
• Maximilian von Jaunez (1873–1947)
• Erwin Baur (1875–1933)
• Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965), Nobel Prize 1952
• Ernest Esclangon (1876–1954)
• Paul Rohmer (1876–1977)
• Maurice René Fréchet (1878–1973)
• Helene Bresslau Schweitzer (1879–1957)
• Max von Laue (1879–1960), Nobel Prize 1914
• Leonid Mandelstam (1879–1944)
• René Leriche (1879–1955)
• Nikolai Papaleksi (1880–1947)
• Hans Kniep (1881–1930)
• Hermann Staudinger (1881–1965), Nobel Prize 1953
• Albert Gabriel (1883–1972), professor of Art history (1925–1926)
• Otto Fritz Meyerhof (1884–1951), Nobel Prize 1922
• Étienne Gilson (1884-1978)
• Pablo Groeber (1885–1964)
• Pierre Montet (1885–1966)
• Marc Bloch (1886–1944)
• Robert Schuman (1886–1963)
• Ernst Robert Curtius (1886–1956)
• Hans Schlossberger (1887–1960)
• Friedrich Wilhelm Levi (1888–1966)
• Carl Schmitt (1888–1985)
• Beno Gutenberg (1889–1960)
• André Danjon (1890–1967)
• Pauline Alderman (1893–1983)
• Henri Lefebvre (1901–1991)
• Michel Mouskhely (1903–1964)
• Jean Cavaillès (1903–1944)
• Louis Néel (1904–2000), Nobel Prize 1970
• Henri Cartan (1904–2008)
• Ernst Anrich (1906–2001)
• Emmanuel Levinas (1906–1995)
• Maurice Blanchot (1907–2003)
• Michael Ellis DeBakey (1908–2008)
• Antoinette Feuerwerker (1912–2003)
• Salomon Gluck (1914–1944)
• Wu Wenjun (1919-2017)
• Laurent Schwartz (1915–2002), Fields Medal 1950
• Hicri Fişek (1918–2002)
• Lucien Braun (1923–2020)
• René Thom (1923–2002), Fields Medal 1958
• Robert Preus (1924–1995)
• Francis Rapp (1926–2020)
• Milton Santos (1926–2001), Vautrin Lud Prize 1994
• Gabriel Vahanian (*1927)
• Martin Karplus (*1930), Nobel Prize 2013
• Yves Michaud (*1930)
• Pierre Chambon (*1931)
• John Warwick Montgomery (*1931)
• Zemaryalai Tarzi (*1933)
• Alberto Fujimori (1938–2024)
• Liliane Ackermann (1938–2007)
• Jean-Marie Lehn (*1939), Nobel Prize 1987
• Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe (1940–2007)
• Yves Meyer (*1940), Abel Prize 2017
• Jean-Luc Nancy (*1940)
• Jules A. Hoffmann (*1941), Nobel Prize 2011
• Katia Krafft (1942–1991)
• Jean-Pierre Sauvage (*1944), Nobel Prize 2016
• Perla Serfaty (*1944)
• Isaac_Zokoué (1944–2014)
• Jean-Marc Egly (*1945)
• Moncef Marzouki (*1945)
• Kenneth Thibodeau (*1945)
• Maurice Krafft (1946–1991)
• Jean-Louis Mandel (*1946)
• Jacques Marescaux (*1948)
• Arsène Wenger (*1949)
• Jürgen Wöhler (*1950)
• Patrick Strzoda (*1952)
• Jean-Claude Juncker (*1954)
• Thomas Ebbesen (*1954)
• Pascal Mayer (*1963)
• Luc Grethen (*1964)
• Philippe Horvath (*1970)

• Simon Schraub

Rankings

University rankings
Global – Overall
ARWU World[7]	151–200 (2023)
QS World[8]	=421 (2024)
THE World[9]	601–800 (2023)
USNWR Global[10]	=277 (2023)

See also

• Reichsuniversität Straßburg
• Jardin botanique de l'Université de Strasbourg
• List of early modern universities in Europe
• On the Poverty of Student Life
• Musée de minéralogie
• Musée zoologique de la ville de Strasbourg

References

1. "Budget". University of Strasbourg. Retrieved 15 November 2019.
2. "Chiffres clés". University of Strasbourg. Retrieved 15 November 2019.
3. "Formation doctorale". University of Strasbourg. Retrieved 15 November 2019.
4. Paterson, Hugh Sinclair; Exell, Joseph Samuel (October 1870). "Angelus Silesius: Physician, Priest and Poet". The British & Foreign Evangelical Review. Vol. XIX. London: James Nisbet & Co. pp. 682–700, based in large part on Kahlert, August (Dr.). Angelus Silesius: Ein literar-historiche Untersuchung (Breslau: s.n., 1853).{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)
5. "Décret n° 2008-787 portant création de l'université de Strasbourg" (in French). legifrance.gouv.fr. 18 August 2008. Retrieved 21 June 2009.
6. See commemorative plaque Palais Universitaire de Strasbourg-10 août 1949
7. "Academic Ranking of World Universities 2023". Retrieved 24 August 2023.
8. "QS World University Rankings: Université de Strasbourg". Top Universities. 1 February 2024.
9. "World University Rankings: University of Strasbourg". Times Higher Education (THE). 18 October 2023.
10. "U.S. News Education: Best Global Universities: Universite de Strasbourg". usnews.com.

External links

• University of Strasbourg
• The Art and Science collections of the University of Strasbourg
• Scholars and Literati at the University of Strasbourg (1621–1795), in Repertorium Eruditorum Totius Europae/RETE.

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