University of Rennes

The six establishments will be grouped together in an 'Experimental Public Establishment' (EPE), weighing nearly 7,000 staff and teachers, including a thousand researchers, 156 research laboratories and 60,000 of the 68,000 students in the Breton capital, including 7,000 international students.

[3][4] This embodied Francis II's wish to assert his independence from the King of France, while universities were being opened on the outskirts of the duchy in Angers in 1432, Poitiers in 1432 and Bordeaux in 1441.

[4] Created in the form of a studium generale, this university could teach all the traditional disciplines: Arts, Theology, Law and Medicine.

[5] A first attempt to move the university from Nantes to Rennes took place at the end of the 16th century.

King Henry IV sought to punish Nantes, a league town, for its support of the Duke of Mercœur.

The university was ordered to move to Rennes, a city that had remained loyal to the monarchy, in a letter of patent dated 8 August 1589.

[5] The city of Nantes was entirely focused on commerce and its elites showed little interest in the university.

[4] In 1806, Napoleon reorganised the entire French education system by establishing the Imperial University.

The University of Rennes also developed elsewhere in Brittany, notably in Nantes, in Brest in 1959, in Quimper in 1970 and also in Angers.

[8] The six institutions are grouped together in an "EPE", a legal status as an 'experimental' collegiate university, weighing nearly 7,000 staff and teachers, including about 1,000 researchers, 156 research laboratories, and 60,000 of the 68,000 students in the Breton capital, including 7,000 international students.

Coat of arms of the Duke's University of Brittany in Nantes, France, in the 17th and 18th century.
Buildings of the Faculty of Science until its move to the Beaulieu campus.
The Villejean campus of the University of Rennes in 2010.