University of Strasbourg

Overview

The University of Strasbourg (Unistra) is a public research university located in the city of Strasbourg in Alsace, France. It was founded in 1538 and sits at the center of the Eurodistrict, home of the European Parliament.

Unistra is one of the founding members of the League of European Research Universities. It is also a founding member of The European Campus and is part of many academic consortia, including the Utrecht Network, the Franco-German University, and the Academic Consortium for the 21st Century.

The university takes on an interdisciplinary approach to education and offers a wide range of degree programs and training in five main study areas namely Arts, Literature, Languages; Social Sciences and Humanities; Science and Technology; Law, Economics, Management, Political and Social Sciences; and Health.

Moreover, it has more than 400 partner institutions in Europe and 175 more in other parts of the world. Its partnerships with higher education institutions allow it to offer 60 international dual degree programs. Students can also attend binational or trinational courses at Unistra’s partner universities in Germany and Switzerland.

Unistra has more than 30 faculties and schools and 73 research units. It strives to rank among the world’s top research universities. The university’s research activities are focused on areas such as biotechnology, chemistry, pharmaceutical drug, biology material physics, and space sciences.

One of Unistra’s many faculties is the Faculty of Arts, which offers undergraduate majors in Design, Film Studies, and Theatrical Studies. Meanwhile, the Faculty of Languages offers undergraduate programs in Applied Foreign Languages, North European Studies, Japanese Studies, and Turkish Studies, among others.

The Faculty of Physics and Engineering have undergraduate programs, such as Mechanics and Industrial Engineering and Energy, Electricity, and Sustainable Development. Its postgraduate programs include Design and Ergonomics, Industrial Production, and Mechatronics and Energy.

The University of Strasbourg’s predecessor was the Jean Sturm Gymnasium, founded by German educator Johannes Sturm. The Gymnasium was transformed into a university in 1621. In 1971, it was divided into three institutions: Louis Pasteur University, Marc Bloch University, and Robert Schuman University. These three institutions were once again reunited in 2009; thus, reconstituting the original University of Strasbourg.

Unistra’s long history has also produced an impressive list of notable alumni in the fields of genetics, medicine, politics, literature, mathematics, and philosophy, just to name a few. It boasts of 18 Nobel Prize winners since its founding. These include German chemist Adolf von Baeyer, French physician Charles Louis Alphonse Laveran, coordination chemist Jean-Pierre Sauvage, and electrical engineer, physicist, and inventor, Karl Ferdinand Braun.