Université de Lille

The University of Lille (French: Université de Lille, abbreviated as ULille, UDL or univ-lille) is a French pluridisciplinary public university located in and around Lille, Hauts-de-France (Métropole européenne de Lille). It has its origins in the University of Douai (1559), and resulted from the merger in 2018 of the three universities Lille 1 University of Science and Technology, Lille 2 University of Health and Law, and Charles de Gaulle University – Lille III. With more than 74,000 students, it is one of the largest French university and one of the largest French-speaking universities in the world.

The university is the main component of the Community of Universities and Institutions (COMUE) Lille Nord de France and the associated European Doctoral College, which federates universities and other higher learning institutes in the Hauts-de-France region.

With 66 research labs, 350 PhD theses supported per year and 3,000 scientific publications each year, it is well represented in the research community; it collaborates with many organizations (Pasteur Institute of Lille, CHU Lille University Hospital, CNRS, INSERM, INRA, INRIA etc.) and schools (École Centrale de Lille, École des Mines-Télécom de Lille-Douai (IMT Lille Douai), Sciences Po Lille etc.).

It is labeled I-Site (Initiatives for Science-Innovation-Territories-Economy) in 2017 by the French government. It benefits from an allocation of 500 million euros for its project «Université Lille Nord-Europe (ULNE)» which aims to classify it in the top 50 universities of Europe.