Overwiew – Department of Geography

The Department Geography of Université Paris Cité is one of the three departments of UFR GHES. It brings together some 40 lecturers and researchers from different research laboratories, multidisciplinary and multi-institutional. This allows the team of teacher-researchers to be reinforced by many researchers from the CNRS or the IRD, and many PhD students.

Within the university, the Department of Geography aims to participate in a dynamic of innovative multidisciplinary scientific production, as well as to offer high-level teaching in the contemporary fields of research of the discipline, in particular, the study of the territorial dynamics of social systems, environmental analyses, spatial analysis technologies and tools, and land use planning practices. Teaching is closely linked to research conducted in the various laboratories attached to the department, which are also integrated into various scientific networks at the Paris, national and international levels.

Upon their arrival in the department, students receive a training where theoretical reflection on societies and their environment, on a global scale, is accompanied by the acquisition of techniques and tools allowing the implementation of authentic practical knowledge. The use of field work, in France and abroad, is an intrinsic part of the training. The Bachelor courses aim to provide students with the methods of a research approach preparing them for teaching in master.

History of the Department of Geography

The history of the Department of Geography goes back to 1971 and the creation of the University Paris 7, then named University Paris Diderot, born from the desire of a group of academics and researchers to build in Paris a large institution of higher education and research based on pluridisciplinarity, including medicine, sciences, humanities and humanities.

Geography was integrated into a multidisciplinary social science UFR that included, in addition to geographers, historians, jurists, economists and sociologists. Geography is thus represented by a team of teacher-researchers, led by Jean Dresh, who want to work closely with the other social sciences, but also the earth sciences. Research plays an important role in this process of transmitting to students knowledge developed in multidisciplinary research centres whose role is essential from this period.

The current Department of Geography is the heir to this dynamic. Since 2019, it has been integrated into the UFR GHES (Geography, History, Economy and Societies) in the new University Paris Cité.