The purpose of the doctoral college is to contribute to and sustain a combination of first-class university institutes and close links between education, research and society in the Lille-Nord de France region, a European region including over a hundred thousand university students and more than ten thousand researchers.
Lille-Nord de France claims[2] to be one of the few European hub regions recognised for their academic excellence and innovation.
Incubators for start-up companies (such as Eurasanté and MITI-incubation) are located on the campus sites in the Lille area.
It is at the origin of the I-Site (Initiatives for Science-Innovation-Territories-Economy) « Université Lille Nord-Europe (ULNE) » which aims to classify it in the top 50 universities of Europe.
French research teams associated to the European Doctoral College are hosted in the following academic institutes listed in the Académie de Lille:[3] The Community of Universities and Institutions (COMUE) Lille Nord de France includes the following establishments : Several institutions are associate members : It participates in French competitiveness clusters : Six doctoral schools are included in the European Doctoral College with 3,000 registered PhD students in 139 research labs: