The University of London Institute in Paris was founded in Paris with the help of the British Ambassador in 1894, and became the British Insitute in Paris shortly after the First World War. It left its its Sorbonne link to become incorporated into the University of London in 1969.

The Institute began life teaching oral English to the French, but was soon improving the oral French of visiting British students. These two activies have remained its core activities ever since, adding language assessment in 1945 when it became France's first Cambride examinations centre.

The Institute currently offers BA and MA programmes in French, translation and applied linguistics, as well as research degrees in all aspects of French literature and culture, English literature and film, linguistics (including pragmatics and relevance theory), applied linguistics and second language acquisition. It also has a very popular TEFL certificate programme with over 300 graduates working all over the world.