École pratique des hautes études

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The École pratique des hautes études is a university in Paris, France. It is part of the University of Paris.

The EPHE was created on July 31, 1868, by a decree of Victor Duruy, French Minister of Public Education, and is presently, "a grand institution of higher learning" according to the French Ministry of Education. It offers only post-graduates studies in a variety of highly specialized fields, most often not taught in normal universities. Many of France's greatest scientists in Humanities were professors ("Directeurs d'études") there, as Georges Dumézil, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Fernand Braudel… In 1975, its VI Section (Sciences Économiques et Sociales), created in 1947 as a social sciences section, gained autonomy and became an independent higher education institution, the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS).

The lessons are given at EPHE by high level researchers called directeurs d'études. The conférences or seminars are accessible to all. EPHE delivers proper diplomas, as well as national diplomas of third cycle (master, the former DEA, and doctorate).

The school is divided into three sections:

Life and earth sciences
Historical and philological sciences (also known as "fourth section");
Religious sciences (founded in 1886).

It supports and rules two independent institutes, whom the European Institute of Religious Studies, or Institut Européen en Sciences des Religions, founded upon a project elaborated and submitted to the French authorities by the philosopher and former Che Guevara activist Regis Debray, who oriented his work toward a rather religious social reflexion.