Jean Monnet University is a French public research university based in Saint-Étienne. It is under the Academy of Lyon and belongs to the administrative entity denominated University of Lyon, which gathers different schools in Lyon and Saint-Étienne.

The main campus is located in Tréfilerie, in the city of Saint-Étienne. It houses arts, languages and letters courses, with law, economics and management, human sciences and the Maison de l’Université (administrative building). Sciences and sports are studied in Metare campus, which is located in a less urbanized place in the city. A University Institute of Technology (IUT) is located in Metare too, providing some short courses over two or three years. Optic and vision and the engineering school Telecom Saint-Etienne are located in the Carnot Campus in the north of the city. The Hubert Curien Laboratory, which is composed of about 90 researchers, professors and assistant professors, 20 engineers and administrative staff, and 130 Ph.D. students and postdoctoral researcher, is devoted to optic, image and computer science, is located there and works in association with the university.