Pôle de recherche et d'enseignement supérieur

The 2013 Law on Higher Education and Research (France) discontinued the PRES; these have been largely replaced by the new Communities of Universities and Institutions (French translation abbreviated COMUE).

These universities have subsequently formed groupings in order to pool resources and better advance their joint activities.

In addition to universities, they may include other institutions of higher education and research as well as municipal and regional governments.

This has permitted the creation of tighter groupings called pôles de recherche et d'enseignement supérieur, or PRES.

In addition, there are a number of consortia of engineering schools, such as the Grenoble Institute of Technology, that are so tightly united as to be listed as if they were single universities by the Ministry of Higher Education and Research.