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ESPCI Paris - PSL
ESPCI Paris - PSL is a major institution of higher education (a French "Grande École d’ingénieurs"), an internationally renowned research center, and a fertile ground of innovation for industry. Founded by the City of Paris in 1882, for over a century the School has attracted leading scientific innovators like Nobel Prize laureates Pierre and Marie Curie, Paul Langevin, Frédéric Joliot-Curie, Pierre-Gilles de Gennes, and Georges Charpak, who continue to contribute to the institution’s international reputation. The School’s culture of excellence remains as vibrant as ever. Fully 60% of (...)
Educational programs
Welcome to PSL University! By joining ESPCI paris- PSL, you also join PSL university and its 17 000 students. You get access to an exceptionnel education in sciences, arts, litterature and culture. From Bachelor to PhD, academic programs cover all the fields from sciences, human and social sciences, engineering and arts. PSL targets high-potential students, from every horizon, an accompagnies them towards excellence. Your education will be operated by ESPCI paris - PSL, and your degree delivered by PSL University. Discover the education programs of PSL University Ingénieur ESPCI Paris - (...)
Research
ESPCI Paris - PSL is home to 10 research laboratories (all of them being endorsed and jointly sponsored by CNRS) operating at the frontiers of scientific knowledge and experimental know-how, extending from fundamental research to innovation, and covering areas ranging from polymers to telecommunications, from nanobiophysics to organic synthesis, from environmental science to biomedical imaging, from neurobiology to microfluidics, from soft matter to quantum physics, and from colloids to prototyping for industry. ESPCI researchers publish around 500 scientific articles in leading (...)
Innovation
- Inventions
- Entrepreneurship and business start-ups
ESPCI: generating innovation and jobs ESPCI is also known for its capacity to encourage major innovations. Did you know that as well as radium, polonium, actinium and lutecium, many other objects from our everyday lives were first discovered or created at ESPCI, like the neon tube, the black box, the quartz watch, sonar, wireless technology, self-healing rubber or even ultrafast ultrasound imaging? An entrepreneurial culture More and more graduates create their own companies after graduation or after their PhD. This capacity to innovation is highly valued today. ESPCI courses (...)
Internationalisation
The Department of International Relations is pursuing the intellectual globalisation in postgraduate education and interdisciplinary research, ambitioned since the foundation of our institution, and welcoming the most talented people from around the world. We are focusing on branding of the iconic French elite engineering education and boosting european and international mobilities throughout the world-distinguished institutions. French Engeering Degree webpage Master Programme webpage Doctoral Study (...)
Support Us
ESPCI Paris is at the center of a large network of partnering agreements. These are three-way institutional partnerships - notably with the City of Paris, and ParisTech -, as well as academic, scientific and industrial partnerships enriched by the School’s energy, expertise and creativity. The commitment to transdisciplinarity extends beyond the School’s Paris campus. Today’s complex scientific and technological issues often demand a broader view and collaboration, with the deployment of complementary, hybrid approaches and the sharing of best practices in order to pool resources and (...)

Scientific excellence is our core value

Ever since it was founded, ESPCI Paris - PSL has been gaining in prestige and status. Evolving from a municipal school established to train industrial production managers, it has achieved the status of a major institute of higher education in science and engineering, which recruits students via the most selective competitive examination in France - an exam in common with École Polytechnique and, since 2011, the Écoles Normales Supérieures (ENS schools).

This steady progress has been maintained by constant focus on scientific excellence in teaching and research alike.

The five Nobel Prize winners associated with the School - Pierre Curie, Marie Curie, Frédéric Joliot-Curie, Pierre-Gilles de Gennes, and Georges Charpak - are emblematic of the exceptional ethos embodied in the permanent culture of excellence.

ESPCI Paris is also the only institute of higher education whose directors have all been inducted into the French Academy of Sciences (apart from Charles Lauth, the visionary chemist, industrialist and founder). From Paul Schützenberger to Jacques Prost, including Paul Langevin and Pierre-Gilles de Gennes, all the directors of ESPCI Paris have embodied the ideal of scientific excellence, which is the guiding principle in ensuring the institution’s world-class status.

The unfailing commitment to scientific excellence at ESPCI Paris explains the School’s international prestige and position in the global community. In 2019, for more than ten years running, the Shanghai Ranking" (Academic Ranking of World Universities, ARWU) placed ESPCI Paris in the lead among France’s institutions of science and engineering, demonstrating again that the ambition of scientific excellence is a viable, complementary alternative to size and scale in rivaling the world’s top universities.

ÉCOLE SUPÉRIEURE DE PHYSIQUE ET DE CHIMIE INDUSTRIELLES DE LA VILLE DE PARIS

10 Rue Vauquelin, 75005 Paris

ESPCI Paris

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