Working in Paris as a healthcare professional: AP-HP, Gustave Roussy, Institut Curie and leading research institutes

Paris and its suburbs are home to most of the 38 hospitals of the AP-HP university hospital network, two major cancer centres, Gustave Roussy in Villejuif and Institut Curie, and major research institutes: the Paris Brain Institute, Institut Imagine for genetic diseases and Institut Pasteur. According to the French National Research Agency (ANR), 10 of the 19 university hospital institutes (IHU) selected since 2011 are in the Île-de-France region.

If you trained as a doctor, nurse, midwife, physiotherapist, occupational therapist or healthcare assistant in another EU country and you are weighing up where to settle in France, this page is for you. It is not a paperwork guide. It shows what Paris specialises in, which institutions do what, and what that could mean for your day-to-day work and your career.

The big picture: AP-HP and the Paris institutes

Everything starts with the Assistance Publique – Hôpitaux de Paris. Its 2025 key figures brochure lists, at 31 December 2024, 38 hospitals grouped into 6 university hospital groups and 773 departments. The network reports 100,000 staff, including 12,000 doctors and 760 midwives, more than 8 million patient episodes, 36,000 births and 2,125 transplants in the year, as well as 5,900 new hires in 2024. AP-HP describes itself as the "No. 1 university hospital in Europe" and the largest employer in the Paris region.

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What sets Paris apart is how closely care and research are linked. AP-HP reports that, at the end of 2024, its hospitals held 25 university hospital federations, 8 IHU and 4 integrated cancer research sites (SIRIC), one of them paediatric. It also states that "half of France's clinical research" takes place in its hospitals. On the ward, that translates into teams used to research protocols and to tertiary referrals: complex cases sent in by other hospitals.

Cancer care: from Villejuif to central Paris

Just south of Paris, in Villejuif, Gustave Roussy employs 4,000 people. In 2025 it enrolled 7,505 patients in clinical trials and had 618 studies open to recruitment, meaning 40.5% of its patients took part in a study. Gustave Roussy presents itself as the leading centre in France and Europe for the number of patients enrolled in clinical trials.

Around it, the Paris-Saclay Cancer Cluster was launched in December 2022 by Gustave Roussy, Inserm, Institut Polytechnique de Paris, Sanofi and Université Paris-Saclay. The France 2030 press kit of May 2023 counted more than 48 research teams and more than 31 start-ups on site at the time. The same document presents the PRISM IHU, a national centre for precision medicine in oncology led by Gustave Roussy with Inserm, Université Paris-Saclay, CentraleSupélec and Unicancer.

In Paris itself, Institut Curie runs three sites (Paris, Saint-Cloud and Orsay) with around 4,100 researchers, doctors and care staff. It saw 10,991 new patients in 2025 and has 87 research teams. Its areas of expertise include breast cancer, childhood cancers and eye tumours. Two IHU selected in 2023 add to this landscape: the Women's Cancers IHU, run with Institut Curie, and THEMA-2, which focuses on leukaemia.

In practice, cancer care in Paris needs a wide range of people: oncologists, radiotherapists and surgeons, nurses in day units and inpatient wards, supportive care teams, and the clinicians who look after patients taking part in trials.

Neuroscience and genetic diseases

On the Pitié-Salpêtrière hospital site, part of AP-HP, the Paris Brain Institute (Institut du Cerveau), founded in 2010, had 878 staff, 26 research teams and 12 technology platforms over its 2023-2024 financial year. The institute describes Pitié-Salpêtrière as "one of the largest neurology centres in Europe". Research and patient care sit side by side there, and in nervous system disorders, rehabilitation and long-term support matter as much as diagnosis.

Genetic diseases are Paris's other great strength. Institut Imagine is located on the campus of Necker-Enfants malades hospital (AP-HP). It reports around 30,000 medical consultations, and 35 Necker teams take part in 16 European Reference Networks (ERN), the networks that connect hospitals across the EU around rare diseases. Necker itself coordinates the ERN for rare skin diseases.

Brain and development research goes further still. The IHU selected in 2023 include InovAND, on child neurodevelopment, led by the AP-HP Foundation, and re-Connect, on hearing, led by the Institut Audition et Cognition with Institut Pasteur. The Brain&Mind biocluster, meanwhile, brings together the Paris Brain Institute, the Vision Institute and the FondaMental foundation around neuroscience, mental health and sensory disorders.

Infectious diseases and research: Institut Pasteur and its neighbours

According to its impact figures page (updated in August 2026), Institut Pasteur has 3,213 staff on its Paris campus, from 93 countries, working in 143 research units and 32 platforms. The institute counts 10 Nobel Prizes in medicine since 1907 and states that the Pasteur Network has 32 member institutes. It is not a hospital but a research institution, of most interest to doctors and clinicians drawn to biology, epidemiology or clinical research.

Severe infections are also a hospital research topic. The PROMETHEUS IHU, selected in 2023 and led by Université Paris-Saclay, focuses on sepsis, the life-threatening response to infection, from its base in Garches, west of Paris. For staff in intensive care, emergency medicine or infectious diseases, it is a field where research and bedside care meet.

Which healthcare professionals?

• Doctors: with 12,000 doctors and 5,300 junior doctors at AP-HP according to its 2024 figures, Paris covers a very wide range of specialties and referral departments, many of them research-active.
• Midwives: AP-HP reports 760 midwives and 36,000 births in 2024.
• Nurses: oncology, neurology, intensive care, paediatrics at Necker; AP-HP trains its own future nurses in 15 nursing schools (IFSI).
• Aides-soignants (healthcare assistants): AP-HP runs 9 training institutes for aides-soignants (IFAS).
• Physiotherapists and occupational therapists: neurology, paediatrics and recovery after cancer or intensive care all involve long-term rehabilitation work.

These figures describe the size of the teams, not open vacancies. What they do show is that one city brings together general hospitals and highly specialised institutes.

Living in Paris on a hospital schedule

Working "in Paris" often means working in the wider Île-de-France region: Gustave Roussy is in Villejuif, the PROMETHEUS IHU in Garches, Institut Curie also in Saint-Cloud and Orsay, Genopole in Évry-Courcouronnes. So pick your workplace first, then your neighbourhood or town, with night and weekend shifts and your commute in mind. Plan your housing search early, and ask your future employer whether it offers any housing support.

To prepare the next steps, read our guide to settling in France, our article on housing for healthcare workers and our overview of salaries in France.

From idea to application

How you can practise in France depends on your profession and your qualification. Start with the guide for your profession: doctor, nurse, midwife, physiotherapist, aide-soignant (healthcare assistant) or occupational therapist, then read our general guide to working in France with an EU healthcare qualification.

Settled on Paris, or still comparing it with another city? Tell us about your plans: join the Suxens waiting list →