The Board of Directors of Pierre-and-Marie-Curie (UPMC) and Paris-Sorbonne universities each met on Friday 20 January, 2017 and voted by qualified majority to become the new Sorbonne University on 1 January 2018. The results of the vote are as follows: Paris-Sorbonne: 19 votes in favor, 17 against, no abstentions; UPMC: 23 votes in favor, 5 against, no abstentions.
These votes at each board of directors meeting give approval for a decree on the creation of this new university.
The next steps in the creation of Sorbonne University are the adoption of the decree of creation before the National Council for Higher Education and Research (CNESER) in February and the publication of this decree in March 2017.
After nearly half a century of existence, these two universities have made a major decision by choosing to merge. It is a new phase in the long history of the Sorbonne and its historical successors—Paris-Sorbonne and UPMC—and the universities of Paris. The ambition of this new multidisciplinary and international university will be to continue, as it has for more than seven centuries, as a center of excellence in teaching and research, right in the heart of Paris.
Receive the Funding Newswire each Tuesday, our Policy Bulletin each Thursday, and news about bridging Europe’s east-west innovation gap twice a month in The Widening. 
A unique international forum for public research organisations and companies to connect their external engagement with strategic interests around their R&D system.
