Paris Descartes University (French: Université Paris 5 René Descartes), also known as Paris V, was a French public university located in Paris. It was one of the inheritors of the historic University of Paris, which was split into 13 universities in 1970. Paris Descartes completely merged with Paris Diderot University in 2019 to form a new Paris Cité University.
It was established as a multidisciplinary university "of humanities and health sciences" ("des Sciences de l’Homme et de la Santé". It focused on the areas of medical sciences, biomedical sciences, law, computer science, social sciences, economics and psychology.[1]
The historic University of Paris (French: Université de Paris) first appeared in the second half of the 12th century, but was divided into thirteen universities, managed by a common rectorate, the Chancellerie des Universités de Paris, after the student protests of the French May.
Descartes University has ten campuses in Paris. Its headquarters are centered on the "Collège de chirurgie", which was built in place of the "Collège de Bourgogne", in the Quartier Latin, on the rue des Écoles. The teaching facilities and the research laboratories are housed in the Saints-Pères university center, as far as the medical school and the social sciences school are concerned. The refurbished Henri-Piéron center contains the school of psychology, whereas the Law school is located in Malakoff. The dentistry school is located in Montrouge.
The undergraduate program of Paris Descartes is selective, with an acceptance rate of 11%.
Admission to the second year of the university's master programs is selective as well, some of these programs admitting only 1.7% of applicants which can represent 25 students by programs.
The University Paris V has signed over 150 conventions with foreign universities across five continents, including Manchester, Warwick, Copenhagen, Rome, Madrid, Rotterdam, Helsinki, Stockholm or Ghent.[2]
The university focuses on medical sciences (medicine, dental medicine, pharmacy, psychology), biomedical sciences (cellular and molecular biology, biochemistry, chemistry, biomedical physics), social sciences (sociology, anthropology, linguistics, demographics, science of education), mathematics, computer science and law (information technology law, business law, tax law, public law, private law...).
The University Paris Descartes supports a modern approach of social sciences on the basis of fieldwork, participant observation and ethnography (Master's degree in cultural and social anthropology, at the School of humanities and social sciences - Sorbonne). The dual master's degree ("Economics and Psychology" and "Cogmaster") in partnership with other important French academic institutions such as Pantheon-Sorbonne University and the École Normale Supérieure emphasizes opportunities offered as far as research is concerned.
In 1994 Alain Ehrenberg founded[3] and co-directed the research group "Psychotropics, Politics, Society" (Centre de recherche Psychotropes, Santé mentale, Société, aka CESAMES).[4] This is a joint research unit of Paris Descartes and the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS - National Centre for Scientific Research),[5] where Ehrenberg is professor of sociology.[6]
Media related to Université Paris Descartes at Wikimedia Commons
