An innovative master plan for historical heritage and collections

[Article] - Published on September 4, 2025 in Heritage

Although the historical heritage of the University of Montpellier is recognized for its exceptional character, it is still too little known by the university community and the general public. To make it more accessible to all, and to restore and promote it, the UM has recently drawn up a master plan for its heritage and collections.

From the historic medical building to the Jardin des plantes and its intendance, from the Institut de botanique and the Faculté de droit to the marine station at Sète, the University of Montpellier boasts a remarkable real estate heritage. This historic heritage includes not only buildings, but also collections of exceptional quality and diversity: almost 13,000 anatomical specimens, 6 million herbarium plates, 6,000 drawings and prints in the Musée Atger, not to mention millions of fossils, zoological and geological specimens, physics and astronomy objects, drug and pharmaceutical objects, educational material and documentary heritage...

 All in all, it's a priceless historical heritage that sits enthroned in the city or hidden away on shelves. To better protect it, promote it and make it accessible, the University of Montpellier has adopted its very first master plan for historical heritage and collections, which was approved by the Board of Governors on July 15, 2025. This strategic and operational document sets out the guidelines and roadmap for actions to be carried out in relation to historical heritage, in line with the university's strategy.

Centuries-old heritage

And in Montpellier more than anywhere else, this master plan is of major importance. " You can't govern a historic university founded 800 years ago and endowed with a multi-century heritage in the same way as a university that was created in the ^21st century ", emphasizes Gérald Chanques, UM's vice-president for historical heritage, for whom one-off actions are not enough to highlight these scientific and educational treasures. That's why the 2021-2026 multi-year contract has given impetus to this innovative scheme to bring out a global vision for the enhancement of real estate and movable historical heritage.

" We needed a long-term plan that would unite the teaching/research and student communities, the administration, the various central services and the components, and that would also provide clarity for funders such as the state, the metropolis and the region ", explains Gérald Chanques. This ambitious project began with a crucial phase, the inventory of existing facilities, which was carried out in 2023 and 2024 with the full involvement of the Scientific Culture and Historical Heritage Department and its delegate vice-presidents, Thierry Lavabre-Bertrand, then Gérald Chanques and Isabelle Parrot, as well as the real-estate department, Yves Correc and Maxime Pouget, and its vice-president, Bernard Maurin, who worked on this plan coordinated by a project manager, Céline Dumas at the DCSPH, headed by Caroline Ducoureau. This work was carried out in conjunction with the SCD, the DCOM, the DVC (art & culture department), the SCUIO-IP, the DAGI, the DSIN and the DLO.

" This project was an opportunity to carry out an inventory that was as complete as possible, a painstaking task that required the mobilization of considerable human resources ", explains the vice-president. From the corridors of the Institut de botanique to the basements of the buildings on the Triolet campus, the collections are spread across almost all the institution's sites, which can be a drawback when it comes to optimizing their management.

Indispensable digitization

And once the inventory has been completed, the question arises of digitization, " which is essential not only for preserving resources, but also for making them accessible to as many people as possible - Professors, researchers and the general public ". While a large proportion of the UM's documentary heritage is computerized, only 35% of its movable heritage has been digitized to date, including some 1.4 million herbarium plates digitized as part of the e-Recolnat project. And many specimens from naturalist collections will soon join them as part of the E-col+ project, recently launched with the ambition of producing high-resolution 3-D anatomical data and making it available to all. " And to keep pace with this growing volume of data, the UM has acquired a collection management software package that will centralize all our holdings," adds Gérald Chanques.

After all, these collections are not just of heritage interest. " They were conceived from the outset as tools for teaching and research ", recalls the vice-president. A role they still fulfil today, as in the case of the mineralogy collections used to train geoscience students, or the zoology and paleontology collections at Triolet. And to improve this close link between heritage, research and training, the vice-president in charge of historical heritage stresses the importance of better informing Professors, researchers and students of their existence and the diversity of their uses.

Moreover, the university community is not the only one targeted by this increased visibility, and it is to all publics, including schoolchildren, that this unique heritage must be made accessible. To achieve this, the master plan is developing an innovative project to enhance the collections: ForUM.

Museum tour

This ambitious project defines a new perimeter for the presentation of university collections, based around four emblematic sites whose renovation is financed by current State-Region Plan contracts: the Botany Institute, the Jardin des Plantes, the Intendance building of the Jardin des Plantes and the historic building of the Faculty of Medicine. Located in the heart of the city, ForUM is a true crossroads of knowledge, at the intersection of science, medicine and pharmacy, botany and the environment, close to the Faculty of Law, and thus at the heart of Montpellier's university history, and in direct proximity to the other campuses served by the intersection of 3 streetcar lines by the end of the year. This urban heritage site, open to the city, will be perfectly in tune with the Science with and for Society label, which the UM will be awarded in 2024 for the "UM VIA des Sciences " project co-constructed with the Metropole de Montpellier.

ForUM " will offer visitors a genuine journey through interconnected museographic spaces, starting with a large hall of over 200 m2 at the Botany Institute, a veritable showcase for the University's collections. Visitors will then be able to continue their discovery of this heritage by visiting the various ForUM sites in the immediate vicinity, or by taking the tramway to other University sites, to discover the exceptional wealth of the UM's heritage ", emphasizes Gérald Chanques, who also points out the importance of this project in " giving funders a clearer idea of this unique heritage ".

It's a large-scale project that will restore visibility to a heritage that's always evolving. " A witness to a community's past, it has been built up over the centuries, but it is enriched and constructed in real time, and this university heritage must not be fixed in formaldehyde; it is a living heritage that we certainly wish to protect , but also to continue to bring to life and develop for the current university generation ".

Consult the historical heritage and collections master plan

Key words : Heritage, University