Paris-Est Sup, founded in 2007, is a national community of universities and establishments (Communauté d’Universités et d’Établissements – ComUE) which comprises 16 institutions characterised by the diversity of their missions and their ministerial links. The whole Paris-Est site is historically built around two geographical areas: the Cité Descartes in Marne-la-Vallée and the Créteil Maisons-Alfort site. It also includes many facilities on a regional level with the UPEC and Université Gustave Eiffel campuses, as well as on a national level with the latter institution's various campuses.
On the basis of a shared project, Paris-Est Sup ensures coordination of the course offering and the research and transfer strategy in the East Île-de-France area. It helps to promote its member and associate institutions on the local, regional, national and international levels.
In order to speak with one voice and promote a common strategy, the ComUE is regularly called upon to ensure political representation of its institutions on subjects of common interest: dialogue with the supervisory ministries, State-Region Planning Contracts or even calls for projects constituting interfaces or networks.
To this end, Paris-Est Sup has a Project Board aimed at bringing together the site's stakeholders to create mechanisms for initiating inter-institutional, scientific or educational projects, like the responses to calls for projects from the Investissements d'Avenir (Investments for the Future) programme or the Pépite 3EF entrepreneurship cluster.
Paris-Est Sup has been supporting and running the doctoral college for over 10 years. Its Department of Doctoral Studies and Doctoral Training Council enable it to implement a common base of training and actions aimed in particular at deploying the skills initiative and more generally, a quality policy for the benefit of doctoral students enrolled at any one of the site's 6 multidisciplinary doctoral schools.
The ComUE awards the Accreditation to Supervise Research (Habilitation à Diriger des Recherches) qualifications for its two member universities.