Partnerships

The Columbia Global Paris Center lends support to Paris-based, European, and international organizations, with whom we organize public events, conferences, and capacity-building workshops. We spotlight this work on our Atelier podcast and through publications on our website and social media. Behind the scenes, we provide logistical support for some of our partners, as well as providing classroom and office space at Reid Hall for some of these organizations.

Arts and Culture

Founded in 1988 and housed in the historic Abbaye d'Ardenne near Caen, the Institut mémoires de l’édition contemporaine (IMEC) preserves one of France's most significant archives spanning publishing houses, journals, and the personal papers of writers, philosophers, historians, editors, and translators who shaped twentieth-century cultural life. The Columbia Global Paris Center's partnership with IMEC centers on the Contemporary Thought Archival Research Grant, a shared initiative dedicated to exploring the key ideas of contemporary thought. The collaboration launched in September 2025 with the Jean Baudrillard Program, a fitting point of departure, as Baudrillard deposited his personal library at Reid Hall and entrusted his archives to IMEC, making the two institutions natural custodians of his legacy.

The Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF) is France's national library and one of the world's great repositories of human knowledge, heir to royal collections assembled since the Middle Ages, and home to an extraordinary breadth of manuscripts, printed works, images, maps, and audiovisual materials. The Columbia Global Paris Center's partnership with the BnF reflects a natural alignment between two institutions committed to preserving and transmitting culture across borders and generations. For Columbia students and faculty based at Reid Hall, the BnF's collections and expertise represent an invaluable resource in the heart of Paris.

The Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain is a private cultural institution dedicated to promoting contemporary artistic creation across all its forms through exhibitions, live performances, and public programming. Since its founding in 1984, it has built one of the most distinctive collections of contemporary art in Europe, with a particular commitment to artists from underrepresented regions and traditions. In spring 2023, we co-presented Unearthing the Collection: American Narratives, a series of events led by Senior Curator Leanne Sacramone that guided audiences through the soundscapes, skyscapes, and landscapes of American artists in the Fondation's collection. The partnership has also brought Fondation Cartier Director General Chris Dercon to Reid Hall as the invited speaker for the second annual Judith Ginsberg Cultural Program. In conversation with GSAPP Professor Galia Solomonoff, Dercon reflected on architecture and museums. Dercon joined our Atelier podcast to discuss the Fondation's new building in the center of Paris, renovated by Jean Nouvel: listen to the episode on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

The Musée du Louvre is the world's most visited museum and one of its most storied cultural institutions, actively grappling with questions of universalism, restitution, and what it means to hold the world's heritage in trust. The Columbia Global Paris Center's partnership with the Louvre includes a Masterclass co-organized with the École du Louvre, open to students in Columbia's undergraduate and M.A. programs at Reid Hall, and built around the Louvre's annual Chaire du Louvre lecture series. In fall 2024, Columbia Professor Souleymane Bachir Diagne held the Chaire, inviting audiences to rethink museums as spaces for cross-cultural dialogue through his concept of "lateral universalism." The partnership also produced Reimagining the Museum, a public conversation at Reid Hall between Diagne and Louvre President-Director Laurence des Cars, moderated by cultural strategist András Szántó — and the inaugural event of the Judith Ginsberg Annual Program.

The Musée d'Orsay holds one of the world's great collections of French art from 1848 to 1914, housed in a former Beaux-Arts railway station on the Left Bank. The Columbia Global Paris Center partners with the museum to bring its curators into conversation with scholars and students at Reid Hall. Past events have featured Curator Isolde Pludermacher on the landmark Manet/Degas exhibition, Curator Leila Jarbouai on Rosa Bonheur in conversation with former New York Times Paris bureau chief Elaine Sciolino, and a conversation between art historian Richard Ormond and independent scholar Jean Strouse on John Singer Sargent, introduced by the exhibition's curators Paul Perrin and Caroline Corbeau-Parsons. Students in Columbia's programs at Reid Hall also visit the museum regularly, sometimes with guided tours led by curatorial staff.

The Musée Zadkine is a small, intimate museum in the heart of Montparnasse dedicated to the work of Russian-French sculptor Ossip Zadkine, whose studio and garden it preserves. In 2024, museum director Cécilie Champy-Vinas presented the exhibition Chana Orloff: Sculpter l'époque, celebrating the pioneering Jewish Ukrainian-French sculptor — an evening that also featured a concert of Ukrainian music curated by the 1991 Project. In 2025, the partnership continued with a talk and concert organized around the Zadkine: Art déco exhibition. Students in Columbia's programs at Reid Hall visit the museum as part of their engagement with Paris's cultural offerings.

ProQuartet – Centre Européen de Musique de Chambre is dedicated to the vitality of chamber music in Europe, supporting the development of young ensembles, nurturing the string quartet repertoire, and building new audiences for the form. Since 2022, the Columbia Global Paris Center has hosted ProQuartet-supported ensembles in concert at Reid Hall, offering young musicians a prestigious performance space, sometimes as they prepare for major competitions. Reid Hall's Grande Salle Ginsberg-LeClerc has welcomed an array of emerging ensembles through this partnership, including Quatuor Agate, Quatuor Atenea, Quatuor Kandinsky, Quatuor Magenta, Trio Aralia, Trio Astatine, Trio Concept, and Trio Pantoum.

Asia Society France is a Paris-based nonprofit dedicated to fostering dialogue and mutual understanding between Asia and Europe. Part of the global Asia Society network, it serves as a platform for conversations that bridge continents at a moment when those connections have rarely mattered more. The Columbia Global Paris Center hosts Asia Society France events at Reid Hall, welcoming programming from conversations on the geopolitics of technology to literary encounters.

The American Library in Paris is one of the oldest and largest English-language lending libraries in continental Europe, serving Paris's anglophone community, students, researchers, and curious readers since 1920. For several years, the Columbia Global Paris Center and the Institute for Ideas and Imagination co-organized Entre Nous, a series of interdisciplinary conversations between writers, scholars, journalists, and artists from around the world. Hosted alternately at Reid Hall and the Library, the series ranged across literature, translation, music, climate, migration, and the history of data — featuring voices including Gayatri Spivak, Joyce Carol Oates, Isabella Hammad, Stephen Greenblatt, and Elizabeth Kolbert. The full archive of Entre Nous conversations remains available to watch here.

Éditions du Portrait is a Paris-based independent publishing house specializing in narrative nonfiction and biographical writing, bringing to life figures, often women, whose stories have been overlooked or underrepresented in the historical record. The Paris Global Center partners with them for book launches, such as for American author Lauren Hough’s La Fureur de vivre, or the biography of Nellie Bly, the pioneering nineteenth-century investigative journalist, by Nicola Attadio.

The Arts Arena is a Paris-based nonprofit that creates opportunities for dialogue between artists, intellectuals, and publics across disciplinary and national boundaries. Their events are held at Reid Hall, in partnership with the Paris Global Center. Its president and artistic director, Margery Arent Safir, a long-standing presence in Reid Hall's intellectual community, joined our Atelier podcast for a conversation on the role of the arts in public life and the particular energy of Paris as a place where those conversations happen: listen to the episode on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Founded in Paris in 2000, Société internationale pour l'étude des femmes de l'Ancien Régime (SIEFAR) is an international learned society dedicated to recovering and studying the lives, thought, and works of women under the Ancien Régime, from the Middle Ages to the French Revolution. Through its online dictionary, publications, and scholarly events, it works to make visible a history of women that has too often gone unrecorded. Reid Hall has been SIEFAR's home for its colloquia and general assemblies for many years, hosting international conferences on topics ranging from women and patronage to childbirth, war, and urban life in early modern France. In May 2025, SIEFAR celebrated its 25th anniversary with a two-day international colloquium at Reid Hall.

Sciences Po Aix, or the Institut d'Études Politiques d'Aix-en-Provence, is one of France's grandes écoles of political studies, located in the heart of Provence. Though primarily known for its work in political science and public affairs, Sciences Po Aix has developed a strong commitment to cultural policy, arts practice, and student engagement with the creative industries through its Master in Cultural Policy and Patronage. The Columbia Global Paris Center formalized a partnership with Sciences Po Aix in 2025, built around shared goals: expanding artistic and cultural practice on campus, fostering access to culture for students, and encouraging encounters between artists, researchers, and students from both institutions. The partnership was inaugurated with a visit by Columbia in Paris undergraduate students to Aix-en-Provence, where they were welcomed with a shared picnic and a guided tour of an exhibition on Cézanne, led by Sciences Po Aix master's students.

Journalism

Forbidden Stories is a Paris-based nonprofit journalism network dedicated to continuing and publishing the work of journalists who have been killed, imprisoned, or forced into silence. Its model is built on solidarity: when one reporter is silenced, others carry the story forward. The Columbia Global Paris Center's partnership with Forbidden Stories brings this mission into the heart of Reid Hall's public programming. In these events, journalists have shared key investigations such as The Gaza Project and The Baku Connection. Laurent Richard also joined our Atelier podcast to discuss the organization's work and the state of press freedom globally: listen to the episode on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Le Monde in English is the English-language editorial platform of Le Monde, France's newspaper of record, offering international readers direct access to the journalism, analysis, and cultural coverage that has defined French public life for decades. The Columbia Global Paris Center works with Le Monde in English to build connections between French and anglophone intellectual communities in Paris. Elvire Camus, the platform's Editor-in-Chief and founder, joined our Atelier podcast for a conversation on the challenges and opportunities of translating French journalism for global audiences: listen to the episode on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

The Global Center for Journalism and Trauma (GCJT) is an independent nonprofit dedicated to ethical, trauma-informed reporting on violence, crisis, and tragedy — and to the psychological resilience of the journalists who cover them. The Columbia Global Paris Center is one of GCJT's key institutional partners in Europe. Together, we have co-organized two reporting institutes at Reid Hall, including a training institute on forced migration and children in Europe, and the 2026 Ochberg Fellowship, a program that deepens journalists' reporting of violence, conflict and tragedy. We collaborated on the first edition of the Journalism and Crisis event series in New York, and other events addressing topics from trauma-informed newsroom culture to the ethics of reporting on sexual violence.

Social Justice

Association Journée Africana - Black History Month

The Association Journées Africana is a Paris-based organization dedicated to celebrating and exploring Black history, culture, and diaspora through public programming, most visibly through its annual Black History Month events in France. The Columbia Global Paris Center co-organizes Les Encres de l'Atlantique, a monthly cultural series conceptualized and curated by Maboula Soumahoro — associate professor at the Université de Tours and a former Fellow of the Institute for Ideas and Imagination. The series brings together writers, filmmakers, sociologists, and artists for conversations rooted in the Black diaspora in France and beyond. Past sessions have featured writers Ta-Nehisi Coates, Faïza Guène, Mohamed Mbougar Sarr, journalist Rokhaya Diallo, and singer Jocelyne Béroard, alongside tributes to Maryse Condé, and more. Les Encres de l'Atlantique is one of Reid Hall's most beloved and consistently attended public series.

Génération Leaders is a Paris-based organization founded by activist Assa Traoré that works to empower young people from working-class and marginalized backgrounds, providing mentorship, civic education, and leadership training to those too often excluded from positions of influence in French public life. The Columbia Global Paris Center provides physical space for Génération Leaders' workshops, events, and graduations, and also partners with the group for events, featuring participants in events such as Youth in a Changing World in April 2026. Assa Traoré joined our Atelier podcast for a conversation on youth empowerment, structural inequality, and what real leadership looks like in contemporary France: listen to the episode in French (Spotify/Apple Podcasts) or dubbed English (Spotify/Apple Podcasts).

Programme PAUSE is a French government initiative that protects and supports scientists and artists who can no longer continue their work in their countries of origin, co-financing host institutions, helping displaced individuals access essential services, and accompanying them toward sustainable professional integration over the long term. Since 2024, the Columbia Global Paris Center and the Institute for Ideas and Imagination have collaborated with Programme PAUSE on the Reid Hall residencies of two Palestinian artists from Gaza, poet Doha Kahlout and visual artist Maha Al-Daya.

The Fondation pour la mémoire de l'esclavage is a French institution with a clear and urgent mission: to establish colonial slavery as a defining chapter of French history, recognize its lasting political, cultural, and human legacies, and mobilize knowledge in the fight against racism and discrimination. A bridge between the world of research and the general public, the Fondation works across culture, education, and media to ensure that this history is transmitted — and felt — across French society. The Columbia Global Paris Center's partnership with the Fondation brings together two institutions for whom memory, justice, and intellectual rigor are inseparable. The Fondation has welcomed Columbia students for visits and workshops, and the two organizations are developing shared public programming at Reid Hall.

The Fondation Croix-Rouge française drives research in the humanities and social sciences to better understand — and ultimately transform — humanitarian and social action. Working across questions of poverty, health, migration, climate, and crisis, it bridges the worlds of researchers, practitioners, and policymakers, generating knowledge that is designed to be directly mobilizable. The Columbia Global Paris Center has recently established a partnership with the Fondation Croix-Rouge française, with plans to collaborate on workshops and public events at Reid Hall.

Health and Medical Science

The Maison des Femmes Restart is a pioneering center in Saint-Denis that provides comprehensive care for women who have experienced violence, bringing together medical, psychological, legal, and social support under one roof. Since its founding, it has become a model for integrated, dignity-centered care in France and beyond. The Columbia Global Paris Center partners with La Maison des Femmes for events, such as a talk in Spring 2026 organized with Women in Finance president Véronique Weill and Dr. Ghada Hatem, founder of Maison des Femmes. The center’s, Violette Perrotte, joined Atelier podcast for a conversation on the realities of gender-based violence in France, the challenges of building sustainable care infrastructure, and what it means to put women's needs at the center of public health: listen to the episode on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

Centre d’épidémiologie et de statistiques

The Centre de Recherche en Epidémiologie et Statistiques (CRESS) is one of France's leading research centers in epidemiology and biostatistics, affiliated with Inserm, Université Paris Cité, Université Sorbonne Paris Nord, and INRAe. Based in Paris and recognized internationally, CRESS works across the full arc of human health — from perinatal and pediatric epidemiology to aging, nutrition, and neurodegenerative disease — developing innovative methods that shape clinical practice and public health policy. The Columbia Global Paris Center's partnership with CRESS brings together two institutions with a shared commitment to rigorous, interdisciplinary research and its real-world impact, with programming designed to connect Columbia students at Reid Hall with the work and researchers of one of Paris's most dynamic scientific communities.

Columbia University's Program in Narrative Medicine, based at the Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, pioneered a field that takes seriously what stories do in healthcare The Columbia Global Paris Center's partnership with the Narrative Medicine program began in January 2024 with an inaugural encounter between French and American healthcare practitioners. In January 2025, a group of Narrative Medicine and Narrative Care practitioners gathered at Reid Hall to plan an international convening; that work culminated in a two-day conference and public event in June, bringing together participants from across the United States and Europe. The conference returns to Reid Hall in May 2026. This franco-american exchange is led by Delphine Taylor M.D., Associate Professor of Medicine at the Columbia University Medical Center, and Nellie Hermann, Creative Director of the Program in Narrative Medicine at Columbia. Listen to their Atelier podcast episode on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

Climate

Daughters for Earth is an international nonprofit built on a conviction that the climate crisis cannot be solved without addressing the systematic marginalization of women. When climate disasters strike, women — particularly in the Global South — are disproportionately displaced, impoverished, and burdened with sustaining their families' basic needs, yet their leadership and contributions to climate action remain chronically underfunded and underrecognized. Daughters for Earth works to change that by funding and celebrating women-led environmental initiatives around the world. The Columbia Global Paris Center partners with Daughters for Earth on public programming that brings this work into conversation with scholarship and civil society, including the 2025 Women in Climate Action series.

Founded in 2021, SHE Changes Climate is an international advocacy organization with a single, clear demand: equal representation of women at every level of climate decision-making. Working across more than ten countries in both the Global South and North, it campaigns for political change, amplifies women's voices on climate issues, and connects women leaders directly with national and international decision-makers. The Columbia Global Paris Center partners with SHE Changes Climate on public programming at Reid Hall, including the Women in Climate Action series and an upcoming event in June 2026.

Institut du développement durable et des relations internationales (IDDRI) is a Paris-based international think tank dedicated to sustainable development, working at the intersection of science, policy, and multilateral cooperation. It analyzes and proposes pathways toward a society that ensures prosperity for both the Global South and North, with a particular focus on international cooperation and European policy. The Columbia Global Paris Center and IDDRI are developing a partnership that will bring IDDRI's policy expertise into conversation with Columbia's research community and public programming at Reid Hall.

Our collaborations encompass a diverse range of formats and modes of engagement. Columbia collaborations may include the co-organization of events, the delivery of capacity-building workshops, the hosting of affiliated faculty, contributions to academic programming, and the participation of colleagues in the Atelier podcast. Such initiatives serve to strengthen connections within the University’s global network while facilitating the exchange of Columbia scholarship and expertise with audiences in Paris and across Europe.

Local collaborations are typically centered on the co-organization of public programs with cultural, academic, and civic institutions in France, fostering dialogue and mutual learning.