[9] The move initially went against the wishes of the Bishop of Montréal, Édouard-Charles Fabre, who advocated an independent university in his city.

[14][15] Graduate training based on German-inspired American models of specialized coursework and completion of a research thesis was introduced and adopted.

The second was the École des Hautes Études Commerciales, or HEC (a business school), which was founded in 1907 and became part of the university in 1915.

From 1895 to 1942, the school was housed in a building at the intersection of Saint-Denis and Sainte-Catherine streets in Montreal's eastern downtown Quartier Latin.

Unlike English-language universities in Montréal, such as McGill University, Université de Montréal suffered a lack of funding for two major reasons: the relative poverty of the French Canadian population and the complications ensuing from its being managed remotely, from Quebec City.

The downtown campus was hit by three different fires between 1919 and 1921, further complicating the university's already precarious finances and forcing it to spend much of its resources on repairing its own infrastructure.

[18] By 1930, enough funds had been accumulated to start the construction of a new campus on the northwest slope of Mount Royal, adopting new plans designed by Ernest Cormier.

[22] The Côte-des-Neiges site includes property expropriated from a residential development along Decelles Avenue, known as Northmount Heights.

One of the participating Québec scientists, Pierre Demers, also discovered a series of radioactive elements issued from Neptunium.

It defined the Université de Montréal as a public institution, dedicated to higher learning and research, with students and teachers having the right to participate in the school's administration.

On 6 December 1989, a gunman armed with a rifle entered the École Polytechnique building, killing 14 people, all of whom were women, before taking his own life.

[14] The university's main campus is located on the northern slope of Mount Royal in the Outremont and Côte-des-Neiges boroughs.

Its landmark Pavilion Roger-Gaudry (named for former rector Roger Gaudry)—known until 2003 as Pavillon principal[25]—can be seen from around the campus and is known for its imposing tower.

The incubator is part on the main campus of Université de Montréal and was built in the fall of 2004 with the aim of helping R&D-intensive startup companies by providing complete infrastructures at advantageous conditions.

[29] Apart from its main Mont-Royal campus, the university also maintains five regional facilities in Terrebonne, Laval, Longueuil, Saint-Hyacinthe and Mauricie.

In October 2009, the university announced an expansion of its Laval satellite campus with the commissioning of the six-storey Cité du Savoir complex.

[32] The university's master plan includes the construction of new institutional spaces in the borough of Outremont, Montreal.

The opening of the MIL Campus generated controversy and attracted criticism from various community organizations in Parc-Extension, one of the poorest boroughs in Montreal.

[35] In the fall of 2019, the opening of the campus was disrupted by the Parc-Extension Action Committee (CAPE) to denounce the increasing number of tenants who are evicted from their apartments to make more units available for students in the borough.

[36] More recently, these organizations claimed that the arrival of the campus has encouraged a significant increase in evictions and rental prices in Parc-Extension.

The authors conclude that the average rent for two-bedroom apartment ads between February and May 2020 was almost twice the estimates made by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation in October 2019.

[38][39] Organizations have also criticized the Université de Montréal for excluding the construction of student residences from the master plan of the new campus.

[42] The financial aid provided may come in the form of loans, grants, bursaries, scholarships fellowships and work programs.

[50] Université de Montréal also placed in a number of rankings that evaluated the employment prospects of graduates.

[51] In the Times Higher Education's 2022 global employability ranking, the university's graduate business school, HEC Montréal, placed 63rd in the world, and fourth in Canada.

[62] The radio station dates back to 1970; it received a permit from the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) on 10 July 1990 to transmit on an FM band.

With a broadcasting radius of 70 km, CISM is now the world's largest French-language university radio station.

Varsity teams include rugby, badminton, Canadian football, cheerleading, golf, hockey, swimming, alpine skiing, soccer, tennis, track and field, cross-country, and volleyball.

Roger Guillemin, a graduate of the university, would later be awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work with neurohormones.

Many former students have gained local and national prominence for serving in government, including Former Supreme Court of Canada Judge and UN Human Rights Commissioner Louise Arbour.