Campus Development

Our 7th arrondissement location, a stone’s throw from the Eiffel Tower, has always been a proud part of AUP’s identity. We’ve been in the area ever since our founding in 1962. As part of our ongoing strategic planning process, we placed a student-centered experience at the core of everything we do. The implication of this strategy for our campus was clear: in order to foster active learning, innovative pedagogies, interaction across our diverse student body, and a skill set to prepare students for life after graduation, we needed to move from ten buildings spread across the arrondissement to a more consolidated, coherent campus. This physical transformation would be designed to provide the latest in learning and working spaces that were conducive to students’ academic, personal and professional development.

As years pass, our campus continues to transform. Supporting this initiative included the sale of the old Bosquet building, the renovation of four existing properties and the purchase of a new flagship building on the quai d’Orsay. All the while, we’ve been guided by our core aims: that of meeting our students’ needs by providing environments that foster the interdisciplinary and cross-cultural – not to mention, transformational – experiences for which the University is renowned.

What’s more, a new opportunity has arisen to take this redevelopment strategy one step further. In 2018, we were faced with a choice to either sell the AUP Library’s former location on the rue de Monttessuy or redevelop it. Given the unprecedented growth of the majors in our Department of Art History and Fine Arts – applications are up 270% in five years – we saw an opportunity to repurpose the space into something truly special. Our campus now proudly includes The Monttessuy Center for the Arts.

AUP Ascending Capital Campaign

To make the vision of a student-centered campus a reality, the University launched AUP Ascending, its first comprehensive capital campaign. AUP Ascending aimed to raise 26 million euros to support campus renovations, research centers and the work of the wider AUP community. Of this, 18 million euros funded the purchase and renovation of our new building on the banks of the Seine: the Quai d’Orsay Learning Commons.