Paris-Saclay in the context of Grandes écoles

École polytechnique (French pronunciation: [ekɔl pɔlitɛknik], lit. 'Polytechnic School'; also known as Polytechnique or l'X [liks]) is a grande école located in Palaiseau, France. It specializes in science and engineering and is a founding member of the Polytechnic Institute of Paris.

The school was founded in 1794 by mathematician Gaspard Monge during the French Revolution and was militarized under Napoleon I in 1804. It is still supervised by the French Ministry of Armed Forces. Originally located in the Latin Quarter in central Paris, the institution moved to Palaiseau in 1976, in the Paris-Saclay technology cluster.

Paris Métro Line 18 is one of four new lines of Grand Paris Express, a major expansion project of the Paris Métro. Currently under construction, it will link Orly Airport to Versailles via Massy-Palaiseau, the Saclay Plateau, and Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines. The line will be 35 kilometers (22 mi) long and will be fully automated (along with all Grand Paris Express lines). Subsequently, it is planned to be extended by about 15 kilometers (9.3 mi) from Versailles to Nanterre via Rueil-Malmaison.

It is expected to be completed after 2030. Its first section, from Orly Airport to the Saclay plateau (Christ de Saclay), is scheduled to open in 2026 between the stations of Massy-Palaiseau and Christ de Saclay, in 2027 between Massy-Palaiseau and Orly Airport, and in 2030 between Christ de Saclay and Versailles Chantiers. One of the line's aims is to serve the technological and scientific development cluster of Paris-Saclay and the campus of Paris-Saclay University.

Paris-Saclay University (French: Université Paris-Saclay, pronounced [ynivɛʁsite paʁi saklɛ]) is a combined technological research institute and public research university in Orsay, France. Paris-Saclay was established in 2019 after the merger of four technical grandes écoles, as well as several technological institutes, engineering schools, and research facilities; giving it fifteen constituent colleges with over 48,000 students combined.

With the merger, the French government has explicitly voiced their wish to rival top American technological research institutes, such as MIT. The university has over 275 laboratories in particle physics, nuclear physics, astrophysics, atomic physics and molecular physics, condensed matter physics, theoretical physics, electronics, nanoscience and nanotechnology. It is part of the larger Paris-Saclay cluster, which is a research-intensive academic campus encompassing Paris-Saclay University, the Polytechnic Institute of Paris, combined with a business cluster for high-technology corporations. Paris-Saclay notably also includes the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques, where many contributions to the development of modern mathematics have been made, among them modern algebraic geometry and catastrophe theory.

The Polytechnic Institute of Paris (French: Institut polytechnique de Paris, pronounced [ɛ̃stity pɔlitɛknik də paʁi]) is a public technological university located in Palaiseau, France. It consists of six engineering grandes écoles: École polytechnique, ENSTA Paris, ENSAE Paris, École des ponts ParisTech, Télécom Paris and Télécom SudParis.

With the Paris-Saclay University, the Polytechnic Institute of Paris is part of the Paris-Saclay project, which is a research-intensive academic campus and business cluster being developed on the Plateau de Saclay near Paris. The project integrates several engineering schools and research centers that are part of the world's top research organizations in various fields.