University of Côte d’Azur

The Côte d’Azur University (Université Côte d’Azur in French) is an Association of Universities and Higher Education Institution (ComUE) in Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, France. It was created in 2013 as part of France’s Law on Higher Education and Research, which instructed the formation of ComUEs.

Côte d’Azur University includes 13 member institutions with a range of functions and specialities, from the École Supérieure de Réalisation Audiovisuelle in Paris, which trains students in cinema, television, photography, sound engineering and digital art, to the École supérieure de danse de Cannes Rosella Hightower, a dance school in Cannes created in 1961 by the prima ballerina Rosella Hightower.

The French National Centre for Scientific Research, is a governmental research organisation composed of 10 institutes, with its headquarters in Paris. The Skema Business school offers BBAs and MBAs in China, France, Brazil and the US. Skema counts President of Microsoft International, Jean-Philippe Courtois, and co-founder of skincare company Caudalie, Mathilde Thomas, among its alumni.

The prestigious Nice Sophia Antipolis University is a member of the Coordination of French Research-Intensive Universities, which is similar to the UK’s Russell Group. Alumni include the Romanian Communist dictator, Nicolae Ceaușescu, and the King of Morocco, Mohammed VI.

The other member institutions include the Côte d’Azur Observatory, the French Institute for Research in Computer Science and Automation, the Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales du Nord, the Sustainable Design School, the Centre hospitalier universitaire de Nice, the Centre national de création musicale, and art museum and elite school Villa Arson.

University of Cote d’Azur was first ranked by THE in the 2018 World University Rankings. Prior to that year, only one of the institutions part of University of Cote d’Azur - the University of Nice Sophia Antipolis - was ranked.