Since 1 January 2020, Université Côte d'Azur has been an experimental university and has replaced both the Université Nice Sophia Antipolis created in 1965 and the Communauté d'Universités et d'Etablissements Université Côte d'Azur created in 2015.

Université Côte d'Azur now brings together 17 major academic players around the historic university core to build one of France's 10 major research-intensive universities.