Established in 1956, the CESR is France’s principal training and research centre on the European Renaissance, spanning the period from Petrarch to Descartes and extending to heritage studies in the Loire Valley. Uniquely, it holds a dual status: as a teaching faculty (UFR of the University of Tours) and as CNRS research unit UMR 7323 under the joint supervision of the University of Tours, the CNRS and the French Ministry of Culture.

The CESR brings together about 100 staff members—scholars, engineers, technicians and administrators—from a wide range of humanities disciplines (history, art history, literature, philosophy, musicology, architecture) and from allied fields such as digital humanities, materials science and archaeology. Some 60 doctoral candidates are enrolled through Doctoral School 616 (Humanities & Languages). The centre hosts three flagship programmes—Bibliothèques Virtuelles Humanistes (BVH), Ricercar Lab, and the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles (CMBV)—and maintains extensive partnerships with institutions across Europe. In addition to an annual international humanist studies conference, it organises colloquia, workshops and thematic schools throughout the year and directs ten scholarly book series with French and European publishers.