Udice French Research Universities

The Udice Group is a self-selected association of thirteen public research universities and their seventeen Grandes Écoles in France. The group is headquartered in Paris and was established in 2020. It is the partial successor to the CURIF Group created in 2008 and dissolved in 2020. It is chaired by Michel Deneken, president of the University of Strasbourg.^[2]

Nine of these prestigious research universities have received funding from the French government's “Investments d'avenir” program under the “Initiatives of Excellence” (IDEX) scheme.^[3]

The Udice Group is home to one-third of France's doctoral students, two-thirds of the world's most cited French scientific publications, a total budget of €6.5 billion, and eight university hospital groups.^[4] It's a network comparable to what already exists in the USA (Association of American Universities) and Europe. In the UK, the equivalent of the Udice Group is the Russell Group; and in Germany, it's the nine universities to which the government has awarded the label of excellence.