Our Story
The University of Reunion celebrates its 40th anniversary!
In 2022, the University of Reunion celebrated its 40th anniversary. 40 years of excellence and proximity that we have chosen to celebrate throughout the year. Once a month, an event approached from a specific angle: success, culture, sport, research, international, etc. was offered to the community.
To (re)see on our website !
The original project
The structuring of our higher education system began in 1963 with the creation of the Institute of Legal, Economic and Political Studies, a branch of the Aix-Marseille Institute of Business Administration. This first center became the University Center of La Réunion in 1970, it was transformed into a university by decree of October 15, 1982. Finally, by application of the decree of July 17, 1984, it received full university status.
During the same period, the Law of March 2, 1982 relating to the rights and freedoms of municipalities, departments and regions enshrined major developments in the distribution of powers for the benefit of local actors. Considered the fundamental law of decentralization, it led to the birth of the Réunion Region on February 25, 1983.
The almost simultaneous births of the local authority and the University reflect the same trends desired by the legislator: reduction of administrative and financial supervision, transfer of the executive for the benefit of a local elected official, affirmation of new actors in the institutional landscape to regional scale, etc.
In a rapidly changing society, our young University is then entrusted locally with the mission of higher training for future executives who will be instrumental in the transformation of the future territory.
Regarding our University, it is split into two sites. The historic site of rue de la Victoire hosts the Faculty of Letters and the Faculty of Law as well as their library, the Institute of Business Administration and three common services (sports, continuing education, publications). The Chaudron site houses the central administration and the University Library, the Common Reception, Orientation and Professional Integration Service, the Faculty of Sciences and the Institute of Linguistics and Anthropology. Experts from the National Evaluation Council (CNE) underlined at the end of the 80s the imperative need to bring together the entire University on a “campus worthy of the name” and were ingenuously surprised by these terms: "it is one of the main surprises for the evaluators that the contrast between the relative inertia of the main stakeholders, the students, but also the teaching or non-teaching staff, and the analysis of daily problems, material difficulties constant and considerable.
A transformed university
In The Field of Training, the metamorphosis is evident. When it became a full-fledged university in 1982, our establishment offered five DEUGs (law, economics, sciences, letters, human sciences), three DEUSTs (documentation, agro-food and industrial maintenance), ten licenses (mathematics, biology and plant chemistry in a tropical environment, modern literature, history, geography, English, sciences and techniques of expression, ethnology, law and economics), six master's degrees (law, economics, modern literature, English, history and ethnology) and two DEA (anthropology and Creole and French-speaking studies) – or 27 diplomas.
When it comes to research, the metamorphosis has been no less great. In less than thirty years, our University has managed to acquire 21 research units including twelve host teams and nine mixed research units grouped within three federative structures, create two doctoral schools and develop partnerships and strong links with European and foreign research centers, particularly in the Indian Ocean region.
Finally, our establishment can be proud to have also taken up the challenge of opening up to the world(s). In 2016, there were 832 students from 56 different nationalities enrolled in our University.
In 2022,
A true pillar of the local training and research ecosystem, the University of Reunion today welcomes more than 19 students per year, or three quarters of higher education students in Reunion.
It occupies a unique place: it is the only Reunion university in Indian Oceania. This positioning at the heart of the Africa-Asia axis gives it a major role as ambassador of Higher Education, Research and French innovation in the area.
On the island, the University is located on 7 sites
- To the north: Bellepierre, Victoire, Moufia, Technopole
- To the west: Maïdo
- To the south: Holy Land, Le Tampon