Ecological transition is recognized as the next evolutionary phase of sustainable development toward more profound systemic transformation. Achieving sustainable development and ecological transition has emerged as a critical global trend in higher education. As a critical nexus between humanity and the biosphere, universities play a distinct and pivotal role in addressing ecological crises. Concurrently, they are compelled to adopt more sustainable ecological paradigms to counteract critiques stemming from neoliberal influences. However, prevailing institutional models in academia remain inadequate for effectively steering societies toward an equitable and sustainable future.

In recent years, France has positioned higher education institutions as central agents of ecological transition, enacting multifaceted policy frameworks to support this transformation. French higher education institutions have proactively reformed their governance structures, pedagogical approaches, research, campus operations, and community engagement practices, elevating ecological transition from initial practices to the institutional and cultural levels. Fundamentally, university transition is an institutional change. Institutional theory provides a viable yet underexplored analytical lens for studying sustainability transitions in higher education. Global empirical evidence reveals persistent institutional barriers to sustainable transformation in academia. Research on institutional restructuring toward sustainability remains an emerging and critically underexplored scholarly frontier.

Therefore, this study employs institutional theory to investigate the institutionalization of ecological transition within French higher education through three interrelated dimensions: First, it analyzes the driving forces of institutional change underpinning French higher education institutions’ ecological transition, drawing on theories of institutional change. Second, it synthesizes the actions taken by French higher education institutions through Scott’s tripartite institutional framework—regulative, normative, and cultural-cognitive elements. Third, it evaluates the outcomes and persistent challenges of institutionalizing ecological transition in French higher education institutions, identifying systemic institutional obstacles.

The scholarly significance and originality of this research lie in the following aspects: First, given that France is part of the European and global higher education system, its experience offers critical insights into operationalizing environmental and sustainability education at the tertiary level. Second, through an institutional theory lens, this study provides a systematic critique of the global ecological transition agenda in higher education, reimagining universities’ capacity to fulfill their societal responsibilities. Third, from a theoretical perspective, this study is an attempt to explore the ecological transition in higher education from a new, interdisciplinary perspective.

This study employs a case study method and text analysis to examine the institutionalization of ecological transition in French higher education institutions. First, relevant policy documents from the French Ministry of Higher Education concerning ecological transition and sustainability are collected. Second, based on the "Sustainability" indicator of the 2025 QS World University Rankings, five French higher education institutions with outstanding performance in ecological transition are preliminarily selected as case studies. Official texts related to their ecological transition, including annual reports, strategic plans, and other relevant documents, are collected. Additionally, discussions on ecological transition in higher education institutions from official French media are collected as supplementary data. Finally, thematic analysis is conducted on the collected data using Nvivo software.

In terms of the driving forces, the institutionalization of ecological transition in French higher education institutions is the result of a combination of forced institutional change and induced institutional change. The top-down pressure from the national level, along with the bottom-up push from university faculty and students, form together the driving force. Moreover, regarding the actions taken, French initiatives predominantly fall under the normative pillar, supported by regulative and cultural-cognitive elements. In other words, the ecological transition of French higher education institutions is primarily conducted under moral and normative constraints, with a lack of strong legal and policy guarantees. There is also a need to further develop a shared cognitive framework, facilitating the internalization of ecological transition from external regulation and responsibility constraints to voluntary identification. Lastly, in response to the ecological crisis, French higher education institutions have made significant progress in transforming across multiple dimensions, including governance, teaching, scientific research, social cooperation, and campus management. However, the ecological transition is not yet fully completed, facing practical issues such as inadequate evaluation mechanisms, lack of unity in university actions, and insufficient funding. These challenges reveal deeper barriers to the institutionalization of ecological transition: first, universities face conflicts in institutional logic, making ecological transition prone to "symbolic compliance," with relevant policies often being superficial. To address this, universities should reassess the moral dimension of higher education. By integrating the regulative, normative, and cultural-cognitive elements of ecological transition, they should embed a culture of sustainable development into the cognition of both the organization and its actors. Second, there is path dependence in the ecological transition of universities, making it difficult to break free from institutional inertia. In response, universities should develop sustainable development strategies based on their disciplinary advantages, regional characteristics, and talent cultivation objectives, and establish mechanisms for dynamic adjustment.

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