University of Montpellier

[EduCativ]

Created in 2015 through the merger of University Montpellier 1 and University Montpellier 2, the University of Montpellier (UM) draws from these two institutions' excellence and synergy.
It is reminiscent of the multi-disciplinary approach taken by the first university established in Montpellier in 1289 as a secular and international university.
For eight centuries, renowned scholars and scientists, from Rabelais and Curie to Renaudot, Chaptal, and Grothendieck, shaped this open university. It is deeply embedded in the city's life and committed to the critical challenges of its time.
Today, the University of Montpellier brings together an extensive community of knowledge, from science, technology, medicine, and environmental sciences, to educational sciences, economics, management, law, and political science. It is involved in a strategic global initiative aiming at making Montpellier one of the European capitals for Health and Agro-environment.
This selection for funding represents a significant success for the entire Montpellier scientific community and a remarkable recognition of its potential and projects. Following its audition on 21 February 2017 by an international jury, the Montpellier University of Excellence project (MUSE) receives the Initiative – Science – Innovation – Territories – Economy (I-SITE) certification. MUSE will bring a phenomenal boost to the entire site, along with accrued visibility on both the national and international higher education-research scene.
This result strengthens MUSE's ambition, the largest scientific project ever conceived on the Montpellier site, to address three significant 21st-century challenges: to feed, protect, and heal. "MUSE played the winning card by leveraging Montpellier's strengths in the fields of life science, environmental science, and agriculture and by delivering a collective answer to these three intertwined challenges," reports Philippe Augé, University of Montpellier president.
MUSE is committed to conquering new scientific and economic ground via research, training, and innovation. It will contribute to food safety, sustainable management of natural resources and ecosystems, and improving treatments for emerging infectious diseases, chronic diseases, and cancers.
“MUSE seeks to make Montpellier an international reference in health, environment science, and agriculture” explains François Pierrot, Principal Investigator and coordinator of the project that unites around University of Montpellier a consortium of 10 research organizations (BRGM, CEA, Cirad, CNRS, Ifremer, Inra, Inria, Inserm, IRD, Irstea), 4 schools (ENSAM, ENSCM, EMA, SupAgro), 3 hospitals (CHU Montpellier, CHU Nîmes, Institut de Cancérologie de Montpellier) and 1 international organization (CIHEAM-IAMM).
With about 400 researchers permanently settled in the inter-tropical zone, MUSE benefits from a unique network in Southern countries and unrivaled expertise worldwide, in particular thanks to Cirad, IRD, and CNRS know-how. Montpellier is the first site in France for agro-environment-biodiversity and the research leader on new agricultural models and environmental management. The Montpellier site is also a reference in research on emerging infectious diseases and transmission vectors. These two challenges concern mainly Southern countries and are at the core of the project.
Rich with its 6,000 scientists and 50,000 students, the MUSE project is strongly and actively supported by the Occitanie / Pyrénées – Méditerranée Region and Montpellier Méditerranée Métropole.
Creating a thematic research-intensive university that will be recognized internationally will drive all scientific forces forward (agronomy, ecology, biology, and chemistry, hard sciences, engineering, and social sciences). MUSE is a tremendous strategic asset for territorial development.
These partners seek to build joint world-class laboratories, place research teams on-campus, co-develop curricula to meet tomorrow's challenges, co-build European projects, and much more.

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