Higher education - Art schools

Art schools in France

Higher arts education: a major force in the European Higher Education Area.

The higher education of the plastic arts placed under the pedagogical control of the Ministry of Culture is made up of a network of institutions equally spread over the national territory, two of which are located in the Overseas Territories.
Provided by artists, theoreticians and cultural professionals engaged in art, the higher education of the plastic arts is a teaching of art through art operating a permanent dialogue between practice and theory.

Today, after joining the European Higher Education Area and regrouping its institutions, higher arts education under the Ministry of Culture represents a coherent and dynamic network of 44 institutions, for the training of artists and plastic arts professionals. In support of European programmes and specific programmes, it particularly encourages its students to international mobility. Supporting research is an essential element of higher education. In our institutions, centered around the progressive development of the student’s project, the research opens the way to interaction with other fields and to an openness impacting the creative process. The curriculum follows from the first cycle the paths of an initiation to research, consolidated over the semesters by workshops and methodology courses. This work is strengthened as the diploma approaches.

Creating partnerships that are often unheard of, artistic research generates a valued and productive dynamic within the research and innovation community. It also allows the artistic dimension to be taken into account in innovative industrial or entrepreneurial processes (environment, sustainable development, cosmetics...).

The Visual Arts Higher Education Network consists of 44 institutions that host more than 11,000 students. The courses give access to diplomas at bac + 3 and bac + 5 in art, design and communication.
The diplomas awarded by the art schools at bac +3 and bac +5 confer bachelor and master degrees to their holders. Below is a description of the related training offer.

For more information on these courses, see the brochure "Higher education in artistic creation":

Interactive map of establishments aby the State for the preparation for entry into the higher institutions of artistic creation

Book to download: Study on international pedagogy, research and development in art schools / Ministry of Culture and Communication; Directorate-General for Artistic Creation

Study coordinated by Jérôme Dupin inspector of artistic creation, with Christian Bernard, Philippe Bordes, Jean-Marc Réol, experts, with the contribution of Corinne Sentou, inspector of artistic creation SICA/ DGCA/MC; SIE Report 2019- 009

Book to download: Research Lines/Post-diplomas: Art Colleges / Ministère de la culture et de la communication; Direction générale de la création artistique, Pôle recherche. - 2012. - 112 p.

This publication presents the lines of research deployed by art colleges and their partners, as well as the training they provide after the DNSEP, conferring degree of master.
With different temporalities, the schools gradually build a specific research activity, proper to a higher arts education based on the practice of art.

Grant arrangements for students of art colleges: see the page

Call for applications: see the page

For more information, visit the Year DA website: www.andea.fr
Created in 1995, the National Association of Art School Directors (ANDEA) became the National Association of Art Colleges (ANDEA) in May 2012. Federating all the 45 state art colleges awarding national diplomas Bac +3 and Bac +5 (the latter conferring the degree of Master) and welcoming within it the diversity of the actors who make its richness and life (directors, administrators, professors, heads of services, students), the ANdÉA is both a platform for reflection, a proposal body and a force for affirming the specificity of higher artistic education.

Training provided by the Mobilier National, the Manufactures nationales de tapis et tapisseries, and the Cité de la Céramique in Sèvres: see the page