Clarisse Berthezène is Professor of Modern and Contemporary British History at Université Paris Cité and she holds a Chair in Scientific Mediation at the Institut Universitaire de France. She is Head of International Relations and Global Engagement for iWISH (Interdisciplinary Institute for Women’s Health) at Université Paris Cité.
From 2019 to 2023, Clarisse Berthezène served as Vice President of the newly created University Paris Cité, as it merged University Paris Diderot-Paris 7 and University Paris Descartes-Paris 5, and integrated the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris (IPGP). With more than 60,000 students, and 7,500 staff, Université Paris Cité covers most academic disciplines with a marked focus in the field of health sciences, a unique specialisation in earth sciences, and a tradition of excellence in the social sciences and the humanities. She served as interim President of the University from April to June 2023.
While Berthezène has published extensively on Conservatism in the twentieth century, her current research project centers on the history of health inequality among women in Europe. Examining data from 1870 to the present, she focuses on historical dynamics that contribute to large discrepancies in mortality rates and life expectancy for women. She has been PI of a European COST project entitled “Who cares in Europe? (2019-23), which brought together scholars from more than 35 countries. The aim was to develop an emerging field of research that explored the relationships among voluntary associations, families and states in the creation of social welfare in Europe. Her latest publication is a collective work entitled Mobilizing for Welfare in Europe. The Unpolitical Politics of Social Action, 1870s-1990s. A Document Reader, Bloomsbury, 2025.