Jean-Paul Pier was a graduate student in Luxembourg and at the universities of Paris and Nancy.

He also spent six months at the Grenoble Nuclear Research Center (1961) and a year at the University of Oregon (1966-1967).

[4] Pier was primarily responsible for the creation in January 1989 of the Luxembourg Mathematical Society,[5] of which he was president from 1989 to 1993 and again from 1995 to 1998.

Pier was the editor of two scholarly anthologies, which are standard works on the history of 20th-century mathematics.

He was active internationally in various scientific bodies, including NATO Science for Peace and Security and UNESCO.