[5] The goal was to strengthen the cluster to build an international scientific and technological hub that can compete with other high-technology business districts, such as Silicon Valley or Cambridge, MA.

This Orsay campus brings laboratories of the Paris Faculty of Sciences (later the University of Paris-Sud) and moved to 1956.

Other institutions followed with the installation of HEC in 1964 with its move to the town of Jouy-en-Josas, then with the arrival of the École supérieure d'optique in 1965 on the Orsay campus.

[16] The first building constructed specifically for the campus is the Pôle commun de recherche en informatique (Joint Research Cluster Computing), which was inaugurated in November 2011.

[17] The proposed new construction and renovation of campus was launched by President Nicolas Sarkozy who wants to create a "French Silicon Valley".

[9] In February 2001, the Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines University became a founding member of the scientific cooperation foundation foreshadowing the future campus on the Saclay plateau.

[41] It should accommodate several components of the Paris-Saclay University (earth sciences, economics and management, law and sport) as part of the development in the 2010s, but also several facilities pooled projected by the campus operation (conference center, students and international doctoral students accommodation centers, home business, documentation, logistics).

[43] It includes the CEA's Saclay Nuclear Research Centre, member of Paris-Saclay University, the Orphée reactor and SOLEIL in Saint-Aubin.

The western part includes Army establishments and companies linked to the defence sector, such as Nexter Systems and Renault Trucks Defense.

It also brings together several players in the field of mobility, with the presence of IFSTTAR, a public transport research organisation, the Citroën Racing motor sports team and the Val d'Or circuit, which also includes test tracks.

Various extensions of the campus were criticized by environmental movements in the early 1990s who accuse it of reducing the size of the agricultural areas.

[47] The Snesup (Syndicat national de l'enseignement supérieur) denounces "a project based on an elitist vision of higher education" and the exclusion of many institutions from the board of directors.

[50] The organization referred to as a business cluster is also criticized by the actors who doubt its effectiveness or fear that its development would be detrimental to other geographical areas, as in the case of the University of Paris-Sud and the École normale supérieure Paris-Saclay leaving towns in the Paris region,[51] or in the case of grandes écoles leaving Paris.