Un peu d'histoire

A little history

A hope of reconversion via higher education to escape the crisis in the coal and steel industries in the 1960s

In the early 1960s, Valenciennes, then France's 13th largest urban area, tried to escape the danger of the coal-steel monoculture. 

To attract new industries, train their management personnel and allow young people from modest families to access higher education, the first university embryo was created in Valenciennes under the impetus of Professor Michel Parreau, then Dean of the Lille Faculty of Sciences. Dean Parreau's attention was drawn to Valenciennes, which was densely populated and under-equipped in terms of training. He saw in higher education an important breeding ground among the young people of Valenciennes and thus a hope for reconversion.

The rapid development of the university embryo in the 1970s

The university embryo developed rapidly through second (1971) and third (1975) cycles with a professional vocation, created from young research laboratories in relation with the industrial world and the national economic circles.

A network of research laboratories and efficient transfer workshops allows the University of Valenciennes to actively participate in the economic conversion of Hainaut-Cambrésis.

The 1970s also saw the opening of the university library and the installation of the "fluid mechanics" research center laboratory. In 1978, the Faculty of Law, Economics and Management (FDEG) was created.

From 1980 to the present: the opening of new branches and campuses

The development of the University continued in 1982 with the creation of the Cambrai branch and the Institute of Preparation for General Administration (IPAG), followed by the opening of the Maubeuge branch in 1983. 

In 1995, the Tertiales campus opened and welcomed the Institute of Business Administration (IAE) and the IPAG.

In 2013, the new Maubeuge university campus and the International Campus on Safety and Intermodality in Transport (CISIT), the first building of the Transalle technopole, are inaugurated