With 2024 described as the ¡°year of elections¡±, leadership changes and uncertainty were evident across the globe. But nowhere was that uncertainty more evident than in France, where president Emmanuel Macron in December, after an ill-judged decision to call a snap general election led to political gridlock.

Amid such turmoil, leadership uncertainty at two Parisian universities might seem like small beer.?Yet events at Paris-Saclay University and Paris Sciences et Lettres ¨C PSL Research University Paris echoed beyond the two gigantic establishments, both formed through the complicated amalgamation of more than 10 component institutions in pursuit of a rationalised and more internationally visible French ÖйúAƬ sector.

At Paris-Saclay, the expiry of Estelle Iacona¡¯s term as president in March came amid deep tension over the installation of a new governing board. Since the board¡¯s 36 members ¨C who include representatives of the wider staff body ¨C elect the president, the wrangles forced the postponement of the presidential election, obliging the university to appoint an interim president, known as a ¡°provisional administrator¡±. Then, when the election did occur, Iacona ¨C who was originally parachuted in to replace Sylvie Retailleau when she became ÖйúAƬ minister in 2022 ¨C was unable to secure a majority.

Iacona then withdrew, prompting the provisional administrator, Camille Galap, to resign in order to throw his own hat into the ring. The biologist, who has an extensive leadership background in French ÖйúAƬ, was elected president in June.

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Insiders suggested that the difficulties reflected a broader discontent concerning the formation of Paris-Saclay. While the former Paris-Sud University was entirely subsumed by the new institution in 2020, others among the 15 constituent institutions and faculties maintained some autonomy, among them the universities of Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines and ?vry Val d¡¯Essonne and multiple grandes ¨¦³¦´Ç±ô±ð²õ. The academic communities within each component have reportedly struggled to identify with the Paris-Saclay umbrella, with Le?Monde? the university¡¯s recent wrangles as being symptomatic of an institution in search of a ¡°soul¡±.

There have also been?rumours?of disagreements within PSL¡¯s component institutions. The university elected a new president last month, the economist and former Paris Dauphine University leader?El Mouhoub Mouhoud, to take over from the late Alain Fuchs. The unexplained resignation of Fuchs last year heightened scrutiny of the mega-university project that created PSL and Paris-Saclay. Commentators questioned whether the top-down moulding of numerous, frequently disparate teaching and research institutions into single ¡°experimental public establishments¡± (EPEs) has really allowed them to harness scale and synergy in such a way that makes the whole considerably greater than the sum of its parts? Or whether they remain merged in name only: a bureaucratic ruse intended merely to boost France¡¯s performance in international university rankings?

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Rankings are certainly at least part of the story, according to Andr¨¦e Sursock, a senior adviser at the European University Association (EUA). While France¡¯s university mergers were driven by more than a desire for international acknowledgement, she says the country¡¯s relative invisibility in the first Academic Ranking of World Universities (also known as the Shanghai Ranking) in 2003, ¡°sounded an alarm bell, and France decided to do something about it¡±.

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No French institutions appeared in the top 50; the highest ranked, in 65th?place, was Pierre and Marie Curie University (now part of Sorbonne University).

It was a similar story in Times Higher Education¡¯s World University Rankings. In 2017, prior to the establishment of EPEs the following year, France¡¯s highest ranked institution, ?cole Normale Sup¨¦rieure (now part of PSL), was 66th. Next, at joint 116th, was ?cole Polytechnique (now part of the Polytechnic Institute of Paris, an amalgamation of six engineering grandes ¨¦³¦´Ç±ô±ð²õ?on the Saclay site that were originally part of Paris-Saclay). Apart from Pierre and Marie Curie at joint 121st?and Paris-Sud University (now part of Paris-Saclay) at 179th, there were no other French institutions in the top 200.

Central to France¡¯s lack of global visibility, sector leaders perceived, was the variety of institutions engaging ¨C often separately ¨C in ÖйúAƬ and research, a distinct set-up that eluded easy international comparison. Alongside universities, the sector was ¨C and still is ¨C populated by highly selective grandes ¨¦³¦´Ç±ô±ð²õ, considered a pathway to top positions in business or politics but whose lack of research activity excludes them from world rankings. Meanwhile, a complex network of research organisations conduct much of France¡¯s best research but, since they do no undergraduate teaching, are also ineligible for rankings.

At the start of this century, meanwhile, comprehensive institutions were uncommon: many French cities hosted multiple smaller universities, often discipline-specific. The government pledged to address this ¡°fragmentation¡± of the landscape, and a series of initiatives have followed, all aimed at various forms of institutional amalgamation. ¡°The approach to building up a world-class university by promoting mergers among existing institutions has been diligently pursued by France,¡± says Saeed Paivandi, professor in the sociology of education at the University of Lorraine. ¡°The construction site of French ÖйúAƬ has remained open for decades.¡±

In 2006, via a new law on research, then president Nicolas Sarkozy introduced the p?les de recherche et d'enseignement sup¨¦rieur (research and ÖйúAƬ centres), a form of consortium aimed at ¡°pooling the activities and resources¡± of universities, grandes ¨¦³¦´Ç±ô±ð²õ and research institutions. A PRES did not constitute a merger, but required greater cooperation among its members, with component institutions encouraged to transfer some competences to the level of the consortium.

Then, in 2013, during Fran?ois Hollande¡¯s presidency, the PRES structure was replaced by the similar communaut¨¦ d¡¯universit¨¦s et ¨¦³Ù²¹²ú±ô¾±²õ²õ±ð³¾±ð²Ô³Ùs (communities of universities and establishments), or ComUE. As with a PRES, it was hoped that a ComUE would encourage ¡°enhanced coordination of training and research policies¡±, says Paivandi, with the grouping gradually merging into a single institution over time. What developed instead, in many instances, was a ¡°weak and floating alliance between establishments within the same territory¡±, Paivandi says.

The ComUE structure was ¡°never very popular¡±, says the EUA¡¯s Sursock. Many were ¡°shotgun marriages¡± and few constituent institutions were willing to transfer competences to the ComUE level. Hence, today, ComUEs are ¡°on their way out¡±. In 2016, 20 such communities existed; today, only five remain. That figure will soon drop to four, with the Federal University of Toulouse Midi-Pyr¨¦n¨¦es beginning a .

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Alongside the institutional rearrangements came an excellence initiative, the Initiatives d¡¯Excellence (Idex) programme, launched by Sarkozy in 2010 with a €10.3 billion (?8.5 billion) budget. This saw funding injected into comprehensive universities deemed to excel in research, teaching, governance, innovation and international relations, among other criteria. The sister ISITE programme, meanwhile, rewarded excellence at specialised, regional universities.

The Idex programme did not explicitly mandate that universities merge, says the sociologist Christine Musselin, a CNRS research professor at Sciences Po and an expert in university governance. Nevertheless, all three of the institutions selected in the first call ¨C Strasbourg, Bordeaux and PSL ¨C had either already merged, were in the process of doing so, or had pledged to become more integrated. ¡°My interpretation is that when the second Idex call was launched, many of the applicants understood that they should merge, or say they would merge,¡± Musselin says. ¡°And so a kind of merger mania started.¡±

By 2022, an international panel of experts had confirmed nine Idex universities ¨C among them the universities of Bordeaux, Strasbourg, Aix-Marseille, Paris Saclay and PSL ¨C and eight I-SITEs, including the universities of Nantes, Lille, Montpellier and Clermont Auvergne.

For the University of Strasbourg, the process of combining Louis Pasteur University, Marc Bloch University and Robert Schuman University, in 2009, into one institution was ¡°relatively easy¡±, says rector Michel Deneken, who was a vice-president at the time. In other mergers, though, he concedes that ¡°things were much more difficult¡±, pointing to institutions spread across multiple cities, such as Aix-Marseille University, or institutions that had to combine multiple departments offering the same subjects.

¡°We had long been accustomed to managing the common campus of the three founding universities, and we had no duplicate faculties to deal with,¡± he says. Yet issues remained. ¡°There was the fear of losing an identity, the fear of a university of uncontrollable and inhuman size,¡± says Deneken. ¡°There was also apprehension that one of the three universities would take precedence over the others: in particular, the university dedicated to science, technology and health. The university dedicated to the human sciences was very afraid, for its part, of not being recognised for its specificity and legitimacy.¡±

Nevertheless, the benefits of combining the universities were obvious. ¡°Internationally, three universities in the same city was unreadable, while in most countries the universities were larger and better identified,¡± Deneken says. ¡°Becoming a large, comprehensive university offered an essential leverage for our attractiveness and our quest for excellence.¡±

Representatives of the region can more successfully promote one united institution, while international communication is easier now Strasbourg ¡°only has one brand to wear¡±, he says. Meanwhile, the merger has enabled the university to establish ¡°interdisciplinary thematic institutes, which better anchor the culture of a large, comprehensive university¡±.

Indeed, greater interdisciplinarity is a commonly cited motive for French university mergers. Barthelemy Jobert, president of the Sorbonne University Foundation, led Paris-Sorbonne University at the time of its merger with Pierre and Marie Curie University in 2017 to form Sorbonne University. He describes the inspiration for the merger as ¡°the possibility of mixing excellence in all fields¡±. New ¡°responsive¡± centres at Sorbonne University, in fields including artificial intelligence, robotics and the environmental transition, were made possible, Jobert says, as were cross-disciplinary doctoral fellowships in broad areas, such as gender studies.

Sciences Po¡¯s Musselin, too, references ¡°the idea of a complete university¡± as the driver behind many mergers, although she characterises as a ¡°myth¡± the idea ¡°that if you have different disciplines, they will work together¡­We know many, many universities in the world that have all the disciplines. That doesn¡¯t mean that they are working ¡®interdisciplinarily¡¯.¡±

What the Sorbonne, Strasbourg, Aix-Marseille and Bordeaux mergers all shared, however ¨C and what Paris-Saclay and PSL lacked ¨C was the relative simplicity of combining multiple institutions of the same type.

Combining universities, grandes ¨¦³¦´Ç±ô±ð²õ, universities and research institutions is complicated by significant differences in governance, admissions and social standing. For instance, while every applicant with a ²ú²¹³¦³¦²¹±ô²¹³Ü°ù¨¦²¹³Ù, or secondary school diploma, can enrol in university, admission to a grande ¨¦cole typically requires several years of preparation for a highly competitive entrance exam.

And while grandes ¨¦³¦´Ç±ô±ð²õ are usually managed by appointed directors, universities elect their presidents. The former, therefore, may be ¡°reluctant to be incorporated into what they see as an old fashioned and too politicised kind of [institution]¡±, says Jean-Marc Rapp, rector emeritus at the University of Lausanne and chair of the Idex jury.

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What¡¯s more, many grandes ¨¦³¦´Ç±ô±ð²õ fear the loss of the prestige that French society affords them should they merge with a university. ¡°They provide a fast track into a social class,¡± says the neuroscientist and Idex jury member Richard Frackowiak.

To Frackowiak, former scientific adviser at the national research organisation Inserm, that¡¯s a fear the grandes ¨¦³¦´Ç±ô±ð²õ must overcome if French ÖйúAƬ is to fulfil its potential. ¡°I think they need to go into the universities as postgraduate institutes,¡± he tells THE. ¡°Then you¡¯d have an extremely powerful ÖйúAƬ system, capable of competing with the likes of the United Kingdom and Germany.¡±

After initially favouring the ComUE structure, the Macron French government, impressed by the success of various full mergers, began to favour that model. However, ¡°in the process of pushing those mergers of the grandes ¨¦³¦´Ç±ô±ð²õ and the universities, and seeing that some of them were significantly challenged, [the government then] decided that they shouldn¡¯t be insisting that the grandes ¨¦³¦´Ç±ô±ð²õ lose their legal status as a condition of a merger," says the EUA¡¯s Sursock. The result was the 2018 law establishing EPEs. By the end of 2023, 16 had been created, among them PSL, Paris-Saclay, Grenoble-Alpes, Montpellier, Lille and Nantes.

The EPE model ¡°has brought a bit of oxygen to the system¡±, says Sursock. ¡°It has allowed some of those groupings of universities and?grandes ¨¦³¦´Ç±ô±ð²õ?to be brought together?while leaving some autonomy to the different components, and that removed a lot of the causes for tension and conflicts.¡±

Institutions with EPE status are more closely interwoven than those formed as a PRES or ComUE, which were criticised for their instability, and may incorporate both public and private entities. Unlike with full mergers, however, the component parts can still maintain their own legal identities. For a maximum of 10 years, EPEs may ¡°experiment with new modes of organization and operation in compliance with the objectives and missions of ÖйúAƬ¡±, according to the government, before transitioning into a more permanent legal status.

One prerequisite for EPEs is that they would ¨C like ComUEs ¨C be eligible for international rankings. PSL made its much-heralded debut in THE¡¯s World University Rankings in 2018, in joint 72nd?place; it placed in the top 50 the following year (41st), where it has remained every year since. In the latest THE rankings, four French universities appear in the top 100. Three are EPEs ¨C PSL at 42, Paris-Saclay at 64 and Institut Polytechnique de Paris at 71 ¨C while the fully merged Sorbonne University is at 76.

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While a university¡¯s success cannot be measured by rankings alone, Jennifer Heurley, PSL¡¯s vice-rector for international relations, says a strong performance is ¡°crucial¡± for recruitment of international students. ¡°Rankings are a key reference point for students worldwide when making academic decisions,¡± she says. And Rapp adds that they can be central to attracting academic talent, too, with early-career researchers using them to inform their next steps.

Still, not all are convinced by the EPE and the cautious distance many grandes ¨¦³¦´Ç±ô±ð²õ maintain within them. The Sorbonne University Foundation¡¯s Jobert puts it bluntly: ¡°Compared to Sorbonne University, with one president, one board, one budget and one signature, PSL is not really a university. Paris-Saclay is not really a university."?Instead, he says, they¡¯re ¡°more or less a community¡± of "independent schools or various institutions". And he agrees that the leadership turbulence both universities endured this year may reflect their struggle ¡°to be one institution, and not only a coalition of interests¡±.

In Rapp¡¯s view, ¡°The best solution would be to have a full integration of [grandes ¨¦³¦´Ç±ô±ð²õ] into these universities of excellence¡±. And he says his opinion is shared by other Idex jury members: ¡°It¡¯s much better to be clearly part of a university with one employer, with one strategy.¡±

Harvard Business School is commonly cited as an example of a component institution that is integrated into a university while maintaining its own branding and autonomy. ¡°It¡¯s perfectly possible to have both,¡± Rapp says. Harvard Business School ¡°is living in the university; it can take advantage of other faculties and other disciplines¡±.

¡°In a normal university like mine [Lausanne], you do research, you do teaching, you do innovation ¨C you do three things,¡± he continues. ¡°If you switch your activities, you discuss it with one employer.¡± In an EPE comprising universities, grandes ¨¦³¦´Ç±ô±ð²õ and research organisations, thousands of staff may have different employers, complicating collaboration between the components. ¡°Can you imagine the complexity of the situation?¡± he asks.

Merging under one institutional identity, Jobert says, grants a university a certain dynamism. EPEs, he asserts, "may be less efficient than we are: less efficient in research, less efficient in teaching, and¡­less efficient in [establishing] the position of their institutions in the world¡± 10 years down the line.

A merged institution facilitates international collaboration, he adds: ¡°It¡¯s less difficult for us to speak to Cambridge, Heidelberg, Yale or Harvard because we have the same structure and the same identity.¡±

Start a conversation about university mergers in France and you¡¯ll hear the word ¡°identity¡± mentioned a lot. Even the merged Sorbonne University, Jobert says, has yet to wholly shed the memory of the institutions that came before. ¡°A lot of people come to me and say, ¡®I want to do a master or a doctorate with you at Paris IV¡¯ [an alternative name for the former Paris-Sorbonne University,¡± he says. ¡°And I say to them, ¡®Paris IV disappeared seven years ago. So if you want to do a master¡¯s or a doctorate with Professor Jobert, it¡¯s in Sorbonne University.¡¯¡±

Other times, students can surprise with their prompt embrace of a new institutional identity. Back in 2009, Sciences Po¡¯s Musselin recalls, the president of the newly merged University of Strasbourg seemed unusually cheery amid the ÖйúAƬ strikes that saw thousands of students and academics protest in the streets. ¡°He told me that he was very happy because he saw that the students, when they were demonstrating in the street, had flags reading ¡®University of Strasbourg¡¯,¡± she says. ¡°They had already [absorbed] the fact that they were all together two months after the merger.¡±

But what of the larger, more disparate conglomerations? In the case of Paris-Saclay, its new president conceded upon taking office that implementing his ideas for the institution during his four-year term ¡°will require a considerable amount of investment and motivation on my behalf, and in particular, will call on my ability to rally and unite all of the university¡¯s stakeholders.¡±

PSL is a little further down that track, having, in 2022, become the first of the EPEs to exit its ¡°experimental period¡± and transition into a grand ¨¦³Ù²¹²ú±ô¾±²õ²õ±ð³¾±ð²Ô³Ù ¨C a permanent legal status. In a press release, Fuchs said the university had ¡°reached a full degree of institutional maturity¡±, describing its model as ¡°that of a collegiate university, widely recognised internationally but hitherto foreign to France.¡±

Under this model, Fuchs said, ¡°the component institutions retain a high degree of autonomy, while the university sets the entire strategy, determines the budgetary guidelines, provides a single training offer and takes charge of the common definition of quality standards and their control.¡±

PSL¡¯s transformation into a?grand ¨¦³Ù²¹²ú±ô¾±²õ²õ±ð³¾±ð²Ô³Ù was made possible, vice-rector Heurley says, because PSL ¡°established a deep sense of collective vision, built a narrative, implemented a clear and balanced decision-making process, focused on adding value and setting deliverable targets across different timescales¡±.

This year [2025], she adds, the institution will launch 14 major ¡°strategic research programmes¡±, demonstrative of its ¡°commitment to scientific excellence¡± and notable for their ¡°interdisciplinarity, international visibility, academic impact and representation of the sciences, arts and humanities¡±.

But the success of EPEs will not be judged solely on the basis of shared research projects. For Sciences Po¡¯s Musselin, the key measure of success will be ¡°more convergence between their constituent universities and the grandes ¨¦³¦´Ç±ô±ð²õ¡­The cultures are so different between them, and I think one can say that an EPE is really succeeding if they can overcome these challenges.¡±

Just six years since EPEs were founded, however, she agrees with most experts that it is still too early to reach a verdict.

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¡°Even in firms, mergers need about 10 years to really be implemented,¡± she says. ¡°It will be a very nice process to study in maybe five or six years.¡±