TheCollège de France (French pronunciation:[kɔlɛʒdəfʁɑ̃s]ⓘ; formerly known as theCollège Royal or as theCollège impérial), founded in 1530 byFrançois I, is a higher education and research establishment (grand établissement) inFrance. It is located inParis nearLa Sorbonne. TheCollège de France has been considered to be France's most prestigious research establishment.[3][4] It is an associate member ofPSL University.[5]
Research and teaching are closely linked at theCollège de France, whose ambition is to teach "the knowledge that is being built up in all fields of literature, science and the arts".
As of 2021, 21Nobel Prize winners and 9 Fields Medalists have been affiliated with the Collège. It does not grant degrees. Each professor is required to give lectures where attendance is free and open to anyone. Professors, about 50 in number, are chosen by the professors themselves, from a variety of disciplines, in bothscience and thehumanities. The motto of the Collège isDocet Omnia,Latin for "It teaches everything"; its goal is to "teach science in the making" and can be best summed up byMaurice Merleau-Ponty's phrase: "Not acquired truths, but the idea of freely-executed research"[6] which is inscribed in golden letters above the main hall.
As of June 2009, over 650 audio podcasts ofCollège de France lectures are available on iTunes. Some are also available inEnglish andChinese. Similarly, theCollège de France's website hosts several videos of classes.The classes are followed by various students, from senior researchers to PhD or master's students, or even undergraduates. Moreover, the "leçons inaugurales" (first lessons) are important events in Paris intellectual and social life and attract a very large public of curious Parisians.
The Collège was established byKing Francis I of France, modeled after theCollegium Trilingue inLouvain, at the urging ofGuillaume Budé. Ofhumanist inspiration, the school was established as an alternative to theSorbonne to promote such disciplines asHebrew,Ancient Greek (the first teacher being the celebrated scholarJanus Lascaris) andMathematics.[7] Initially calledCollège royal, and laterCollège des trois langues (Latin, ancient Greek and Hebrew),Collège national, andCollège impérial, it was namedCollège de France in 1870. In 2010, it became a founding associate ofPSL Research University (a community of Parisian universities).
The faculty of theCollège de France currently comprises fifty-two Professors, elected by the Professors themselves from among Francophone scholars[8] in subjects including mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, history, archaeology, linguistics, oriental studies, philosophy, the social sciences and other fields. Two chairs are reserved for foreign scholars who are invited to give lectures.
^"Non pas des vérités acquises, mais l'idée d'une recherche libre". The entire sentence is in fact: "Ce que le Collège de France, depuis sa fondation, est chargé de donner à ses auditeurs, ce ne sont pas des vérités acquises, c'est l'idée d'une recherche libre." From Merleau-Ponty's inaugural lecture at the Collège de France, reproduced in: Maurice Merleau-Ponty,Éloge de la philosophie et autres essais, Paris: Gallimard, 1989, p. 13.
^Byzance et l'Europe : Colloque à la Maison de l'Europe, Paris, 22 avril 1994,H. Antoniadis-Bibicou (Ed.), 2001, ISBN/ISSN/EAN: 291142720.
