The Université Paris Descartes (http://www.parisdescartes.fr/) is a multidisciplinary university devoted to Health and Humanity sciences research and one of the most important research poles in France. It groups 37, 000 students including 1,500 PhD students gathered in 13 graduate schools and more than 1,300 researchers and 2,000 lecturer-researchers gathered in 82 research units, most of which are Joint Research Units associated with the Institut National de la Recherche Médicale (INSERM) and/or the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS).
Research covers a very wide range in the field of humanities and social sciences, psychology, law and economics, biology, medicine, dentistry and pharmacy. Chemistry, Mathematics and computer sciences are also represented and placed at the interface with biomedical sciences, thus bringing the necessary fundamental input to assess and modeling human activities. The spectrum of human phenomena addressed by research at Paris Descartes University is broad going from reproductive and early development of the embryo until the building-up of human psyche and its connections with family and social environment, including the rules and conventions governing collective life and individual rights.
In 2010, the Université Paris Descartes was ranked by the Higher Education Evaluation and Accreditation Council of Taiwan as the first French University reputed by its excellence in medical research. Since 2010 Université Paris Descartes has cofounded alone with seven other Higher education institutions the so-called cluster Sorbonne, Paris Cité (SPC). It gathers around 120 000 students, 1,800 researchers, more than 3,700 lecturer-researchers and more than 6,000 PhD students. A wide range disciplines are covered, from humanities to exact sciences being so far one of the most important multidisciplinary research poles in France.
The Interdisciplinary Applied Research Laboratory in Health Economics (LIRAES EA4470) is the health economics research centre of the Université Paris Descartes. It is part of the Health Policy department at Sorbonne Paris Cité, along with Sciences-Po Paris, and the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Santé Publique (EHESP). The LIRAES mission is to provide health economics analyses of health policies and interventions of long-term care, and to explore health technology assessment issues.