The top universities in France

The University of Paris 06 is the best university instudents who finish their high school education (with
France according to the Academic Ranking of Worlda ‘Baccalauréat’), the ‘Grandes
Universities (ARWU). The ARWU is published by theEcoles’ require an additional entrance exam which
Institute of Higher Education at the Shanghai Jiaois highly competitive.
Tong University and several indicators of academic orIn comparison to French universities, the
research performance are used to establish the‘Grandes Ecoles’ are relatively small
ranking, these include highly cited researchers, articlesinstitutions. For example, the University of Paris 6
indexed in major citation indices and staff winning(ranked 42rd in the world) has 30,000 students whilst
Nobel Prizes.the Ecole Normale Supérieure Paris (ranked 73rd in
The Top-5 universities in Francethe world) only has 2,000 students.
There are twenty-three French universities in theCompared to other OECD countries, France has an
Word’s Top-500 universities (2008). The Top-5average density of top universities (0.4 universities
universities in France are: 1. University of Paris 6per 1 million inhabitants in France compared to 0.4 for
(ranked 42nd in the world); 2. University of Paris 11OECD countries as a whole. It is striking to note that
(ranked 49th); 3. Ecole Normale Supérieure Paris9 out of the 23 universities (39%) that appear in the
(73rd); 4. University of Paris 7 (101-151) and UniversityARWU are located in Paris.
of Strasbourg(101-151).The University of Paris 6 hasThe University of Paris
been the best university in France since 2003, whenThe historic University of Paris was founded in the
the ARWU was first published.mid 12th century, In 1970 it was reorganized as 13
French Universitiesautonomous universities (University of Paris
Universities in France are predominantly publicI–XIII). The university is often referred to as the
institutions. Interestingly, the best students attendSorbonne or La Sorbonne. The universities are now
the ‘Grandes Ecoles’ ['Grand Schools'] (aessentially independent of each other. Despite this
higher education establishment outside thelink, and the historical ties, there is no University of
mainstream framework of the public universitiesParis system that binds the universities at an
system). Whilst the universities are open to allacademic level.