École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
The École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) is one of the two Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology and is located in Lausanne, Switzerland.
The school was founded by the Swiss Federal Government with the stated mission to:
- Educate engineers and scientists
- Be a national center of excellence in science and technology
- Provide a hub for interaction between the scientific community and industry
The sister institution in the German-speaking part of Switzerland is the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich (ETH Zürich or ETHZ). Associated with several specialised research institutes, the two sister institutes form the ETH Domain, which is directly dependent on the Federal Department of Home Affairs. EPFL is ranked among the top universities in the world.
History
Founded in 1853 as a private school under the name École Spéciale de Lausanne, it became the technical department of the public Académie de Lausanne in 1869. When the latter was reorganized and acquired the status of a university in 1890, the technical faculty changed its name to École d'Ingénieurs de l'Université de Lausanne. In 1946, it was renamed the École polytechnique de l'Université de Lausanne (EPUL).
In 1969, the EPUL was separated from the rest of the University of Lausanne and became a federal institute under its current name. EPFL, like ETHZ, is thus directly controlled by the Swiss federal government. In contrast, all other universities in Switzerland are controlled by their respective cantonal governments.
EPFL operates a nuclear reactor, CROCUS, a Tokamak fusion reactor, and P3 bio-hazard facilities. Following the nomination of Patrick Aebischer as president in 2000, EPFL has started to develop into the field of life sciences. It absorbed the ISREC (Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research) in 2008.
Campus
Originally, EPFL was in the center of Lausanne. In 1978, EPFL moved to its new campus in Ecublens, a suburb south-west of Lausanne on the shores of Lake Geneva. In 2002, the department of architecture also moved to the campus in Ecublens. This united all departments of EPFL on the same site.
Buildings
The campus consists of about 65 buildings on 136 acres. Built according to the growth of the school, the campus includes different types of architectures:
- Late 70s-80s: modularized building, used today by the Schools of Basic Sciences and Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Mechanical and Electrical Engineering
- 90s: buildings with institutes from the Schools of Engineering Sciences and Techniques, Computer and Communication Sciences, and the Scientific Park (PSE)
- Modern: new buildings (2002-2004) with Microengineering, Communications and Architecture institutes, the School of Life Sciences and the College of Management.
- The Rolex Learning Center, a brand new library (2010)
Together with the University of Lausanne (UNIL) the EPFL forms a vast campus at the shores of Lake Geneva. EPFL and the University of Lausanne also share an active sports center five minutes away from EPFL on the shores of Lake Geneva.
Facilities
Facilities are available on the campus for the students and staff:
- Libraries:
- Restaurant:
- Le Copernic
- La Table de Vallotton
- Cafeterias:
- La Coupole
- Le Corbusier
- Le Parmentier
- Le Vinci
- BMX (Bâtiment des Matériaux)
- BC (Bâtiment des Communications)
- L'Arcadie
- Le Hodler
- Le Klee
- Bar:
- Travel agencies
- Swiss Federal Railroad
- STA Travel
- Banks:
- Radio:
- Fréquence Banane Student radio
Organization
EPFL is organised into seven schools, themselves formed of institutes that group research units (laboratories or chairs) around common themes.
EPFL is constituted of the following Schools:
- Basic Sciences (SB, Thomas Rizzo) mathematics, physics and chemistry
- Mathematics Institute of Computational Science and Engineering (MATHICSE, Alfio Quarteroni)
- Mathematics institute of Analysis and Applications (MATHAA, Anthony Davison)
- Mathematics Institute of Geometry and Applications, (MATHGEOM, Eva Bayer Fluckiger)
- Institute of Chemical Sciences and Engineering (ISIC, Paul Dyson)
- Institute of Physics of Energy and Particles (IPEP, Minh Quang Tran)
- Institute of Condensed Matter Physics (IPMC, Wolf-Dieter Schneider)
- Institute of Physics of Biological Systems (IPSB, Giovanni Dietler)
- Institute of Physical Sciences (SPH-GE, Jean-Philippe Ansermet)
- Institute of Quantum Electronics and Photonics (IPEQ, Benoît Deveaud-Plédran)
- Institute of Theoretical Physics (ITP, Alfonso Baldereschi)
- Institute of Computational Condensed Matter Physics (IRRMA, Alfonso Baldereschi)
- Interdisciplinary Center for Electron Microscopy (CIME, Cécile Hébert)
- Center for Research In Plasma Physics (CRPP, Minh Quang Tran)
- PRN Quantum Photonics (PRN-QP, Benoît Deveaud-Plédran)
- Bernoulli Center (CIB, Tudor Ratiu)
- School of Engineering (STI, Demetri Psaltis) Electrical Engineering, Mechanical engineering, Materials Science and Engineering, Microengineering, Bioengineering
- Institute of Electrical Engineering (IEL, Giovanni De Micheli)
- Institute of Mechanical Engineering (IGM, Daniel Favrat)
- Institute of Materials (IMX, Andreas Mortensen)
- Institute of Microengineering(IMT, Nico de Rooij)
- Institute of Bioengineering (IBI, Jeff Hubbell)
- School of Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering (ENAC, Marc Parlange) Architecture, Civil engineering, Environmental Sciences and Engineering
- Institute of Architecture (IA, Bruno Marchand)
- Civil Engineering Institute (IIC, Eugen Brühwiler)
- Institute of Urban and Regional Sciences (INTER, Philippe Thalmann)
- Environmental Engineering Institute (IIE, David Andrew Barry)
- Computer and Communication Sciences (I&C, Willy Zwaenepoel) computer science and telecommunications
- Laboratory for Computer Communications and Applications (LCA)
- Laboratory of Nonlinear Systems (LANOS)
- Institute of Core Computing Science (IIF)
- Institute of Computing and Multimedia Systems (ISIM)
- Institute of Communication Systems (ISC)
- Center of Mobile Information and Communication Systems (MICS, Karl Aberer)
- Center for Advanced Digital Systems (CSDA, Paolo Ienne)
- Center for Neural Information Processing (CTIN, Wulfram Gerstner)
- Center for Global Computing (CGC, Martin Rajman)
- Security and Cryptography Laboratory (LASEC, Serge Vaudenay)
- Laboratory for Cryptologic Algorithms (LACAL, Arjen Lenstra)
- Life Sciences (SV, Didier Trono) life sciences
- College of Management of Technology (CDM, Martin Vetterli)
- Swiss Finance Institute at EPFL (CDM-SFI, Erwan Morellec)
- Program of Management of Technology and Entrepreneurship (CDM-PMTE, Christopher Tucci)
- Chair of Entrepreneurship and Technology Commercialization (CDM-ENTC, Marc Gruber)
- Institute of Logistics, Economy and Management of Technology (ILEMT, Dominique Foray)
- Management of Technology EPFL - UNIL (CMT, Francis-Luc Perret)
- Sociology and humanities (CdH, Francesco Panese)
- Human and social sciences teaching program (CDH-SHS, Eric Junod)
Students and traditions
Several music festivals are held yearly at EPFL. The most important one is the Balelec Festival, organized in May. It proposes about 30 concerts and welcomes 15,000 visitors.
Other smaller festivals include Sysmic organized in April by the students of the Department of Microengineering, hosting two stages for local and national bands, and Artiphys, organized by the students of the Physics Department.
EPFL maintains several long-standing student exchange programs, such as the junior year engineering and science program with Carnegie Mellon University in the United States, as well as a graduate Aeronautics and Aerospace program with the ISAE in France.
Statistics
In 1946, there were 360 students at EPFL. In 1969, EPFL numbered 1,400 students and 55 professors. The university continued to grow rapidly, and in 2002, there were 5,872 students enrolled.
In 2004 there were more than 9000 people at EPFL. About 6000 of these were students, with the remainder consisting of professors, assistants and even entrepreneurs located in the Parc Scientifique of EPFL. There were over 100 nationalities at EPFL, with over 50% of the teaching staff coming from outside Switzerland.
In the year 2009-2010, there were over 7000 students on the campus.
The EPFL advised on the Alinghi project, leading to success in the America's Cup in New Zealand in 2003 and in Valencia in 2007. EPFL is also developing a sun-powered plane, Solar Impulse, designed to be completely autonomous (capable of circumnavigation). Bertrand Piccard is one of the two pilots flying the plane. There is also a sensor network installed in the I&C building called SensorScope which reports live temperature and light measurements.
For teaching purposes the EPFL hosts the only nuclear reactor in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, CROCUS.
Rankings
EPFL is ranked Nr. 32 in the US News and World Report ranking of the World's Best Universities. QS World University Rankings[1] has placed EPFL 35th in their 2011 rankings. It reaches the 101 - 150 rank range of the 2011 Academic Ranking of World Universities (Shanghai Jiao Tong University). According to a study conducted by Times Higher Education (THE) based on the publication and citation data provided by Thomson Reuters, EPFL is ranked Nr.1 in Europe in the field of Engineering (November, 2010).[2] Leiden Rankings also rank EPFL Nr.1 in Europe (2010-2011).[3]
EPFL is evaluated as continental Europe's #1 and world's #20 university in the field of Engineering, Technology and Computer Sciences in the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) by Shanghai Jiao Tong University in 2011 (Europe's #1 and world's #15 in 2009).[4] EPFL is in the heart of Europe and is one of Europe's leading institutions of science and technology and is a member of Top Industrial Managers for Europe network.
Notable alumni
Doctores honoris causa
EPFL has awarded a Dr. h.c. degree to several people:
Notable Professors
- Álvaro Siza Vieira, Portuguese architect, (Guest Professor, Architecture), Pritzker Prize 1992
- Amin Shokrollahi (Professor, Computer Science and Communication Systems and Mathematics. Best known for the invention of Raptor Codes)
- Arjen Lenstra (Professor, cryptographic algorithms)
- Claude Nicollier (Professor, spatial technology and astronaut)
- Dario Floreano (Professor, intelligent systems)
- David Chipperfield, British architect, (Guest Professor, Architecture)
- Eduardo Souto de Moura, Portuguese architect, (Guest Professor, Architecture), Pritzker Prize 2011
- Emre Telatar (Leading Information theorist and Professor,Information Theory)
- Francisco Mangado, Spanish architect, (Guest Professor, Architecture)
- Giovanni De Micheli (Professor, integrated systems)
- Henry Markram (Professor, neurology)
- Herbert Shea (Professor, Microsystems for Space Technologies Laboratory)
- Jean-Daniel Nicoud (Professor, computer science, inventor of the modern ball mouse)
- Jean-Yves Le Boudec (Professor, networking systems and performance evaluation)
- Jeffrey Alan Hubbell (Professor, biotechnology and bioengineering)
- János Pach (Professor, Mathematics, One of the few living Mathematicians with Erdos Number 1)
- Lyesse Laloui (Professor and director of Laboratory of Soil Mechanics, et directeur du programme doctoral en Mécanique )
- Martin Hasler (Professor, Computer and Communication Sciences, Laboratory of Nonlinear Systems)
- Martin Odersky (Professor, programming methods)
- Martin Vetterli (Professor, computer and information sciences)
- Michael Grätzel (Professor, Photonics and Interfaces Sciences, Inventor of the dye-sensitized solar cells)
- Mikhail Shaposhnikov (Professor, Theoretical Physics)
- Minh Quang Tran (Professor, physics of energy and particles)
- Pierre-André Farine (Professor, Electronics and Signal Processing Laboratory)
- Reymond Clavel (Professor, robotics and micro engineering, inventor of the Delta robot)
- Riccardo Rattazzi (Professor, Theoretical Physics)
- Rüdiger Urbanke (Professor, Coding, Communications and Information Theory)
- Serge Vaudenay (Professor, security and cryptography)
- Stefan Behnisch, German architect, (Guest Professor, Architecture)
Photographs
Partner universities
EPFL has 179 partner universities around the globe.[10]
Europe
- Vienna University of Technology, Austria
- University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences Vienna (BOKU), Austria
- University of Vienna, Austria
- University of Freiburg, Germany
- University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany
- Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany
- Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany
- University of Magdeburg, Germany
- University of Marburg, Germany
- Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule Aachen, Germany
- Technical University of Berlin, Germany
- Braunschweig University of Technology, Germany
- Darmstadt University of Technology, Germany
- Dresden University of Technology, Germany
- Technical University of Munich, Germany
- University of Ulm, Germany
- University of Bonn, Germany
- University of Karlsruhe (TH), Germany
- University of Stuttgart, Germany
- Faculté polytechnique de Mons, Belgium
- Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium
- University of Liège, Belgium
- Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium
- Ghent University, Belgium
- Sofia University, Bulgaria
- Brno University of Technology, Czech Republic
- Czech Technical University in Prague, Czech Republic
- Aalborg University, Denmark
- Technical University of Denmark, Lingby, Denmark
- Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Denmark
- Helsinki University of Technology, Espoo, Finland
- University of Helsinki, Finland
- École Centrale Paris, France
- École d'Architecture de la Ville et des Territoires, Marne-la-Vallée, France
- École des Mines d'Alès, France
- École des Mines d'Albi-Carmaux, France
- École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées, Paris, France
- École Nationale Supérieure d'Architecture de Lyon, Lyon, France
- École Nationale Supérieure d'Architecture de Marseille-Luminy, Marseille, France
- École Nationale Supérieure d'Architecture de Paris-Belleville, France
- École Nationale Supérieure d'Architecture de Strasbourg, France
- École Nationale Supérieure d'Arts et Métiers (ENSAM), Paris, France
- École Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Paris, France
- École Normale Supérieure de Cachan, France
- Ecole Normale Supérieure Paris, France
- École Normale Supérieure de Lyon, France
- École polytechnique (« X », Palaiseau), France
- École Supérieure d'Electricité (Supélec), Gif sur Yvette, France
- École supérieure d'ingénieurs en électronique et électrotechnique, ESIEE, Noisy, France
- École supérieure de chimie physique électronique de Lyon, France
- Fondation EPF, Sceaux, France
- Institut National des Sciences Appliquées, Lyon, France
- Institut National des Sciences Appliquées, Rouen, France
- Institut National des Sciences Appliquées, Strasbourg, France
- Institut National polytechnique de Grenoble, France
- Institut National polytechnique de Toulouse, France
- Institut Supérieur de l'Aéronautique et de l'Espace (ISAE), Toulouse, France
- École polytechnique universitaire de Montpellier (Polytech'Montpellier), Montpellier, France
- Claude Bernard University Lyon 1, France
- Université de Haute Alsace (ENSISA), France
- Université de la Méditerranée, Aix-Marseille II, France
- Université de Poitiers, France
- Université Louis Pasteur Strasbourg 1, France
- Université Paris 13 (Paris-Nord), France
- Université Paris Dauphine, France
- National Technical University of Athens, Greece
- University of Patras, Greece
- Technological Educational Institute of Piraeus, Greece
- Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece
- Technical University of Crete, Greece
- Technical University of Budapest, Hungary
- University College Dublin, Ireland
- Dublin City University, Ireland
|
- University Iuav of Venice (Istituto Universitario di Architettura di Venezia), Italy
- Politecnico di Bari, Italy
- Politecnico di Milano, Italy
- Politecnico di Torino, Italy
- Università di Bologna, Italy
- Università degli Studi di Brescia, Italy
- Università degli Studi di Cassino, Italy
- Università degli Studi di Firenze, Italy
- Università degli Studi di Palermo, Italy
- Università degli Studi Roma Tre, Italy
- Università degli Studi di Siena, Italy
- Università degli Studi di Trieste, Italy
- Università degli Studi di Udine, Italy
- Università degli Studi di Verona, Italy
- Kauno Technologijos Universitetas, Lithuania
- Technische Universiteit Delft, Netherlands
- Technische Universiteit Eindhoven, Netherlands
- Universiteit Twente, Netherlands
- Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim, Norway
- Jagiellonian University Krakow, Poland
- AGH University of Science and Technology (University of Mining and Metallurgy) Krakow, Poland
- Warsaw University of Technology, Poland
- Wroclaw University of Technology, Poland
- Universidade Tecnica de Lisboa, Portugal
- Universidade de Coimbra, Portugal
- Universidade do Porto, Portugal
- Polytechnic University of Timisoara, Romania
- Technical University of Cluj, Romania
- Universitatea Politehnica Din Bucuresti, Romania
- University of Iasi, Romania
- Bauman Moscow State Technical University, Russia
- Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia
- Tomsk Polytechnic University, Russia
- Mondragon University, Spain
- Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain
- Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain
- Universidad de Burgos, Spain
- Universidad de Cantabria, Santander, Spain
- Universidad de Granada, Granada, Spain
- Universidad de Malaga, Spain
- Universidad de Oviedo, Spain
- Universidad de Salamanca, Spain
- Universidad de Sevilla, Spain
- Universidad de Zaragoza, Spain
- Universidad Politecnica de Cartagena, Spain
- Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain
- Universidad Politecnica de Madrid, Madrid, Spain
- Universidad Politecnica de Valencia, Spain
- Universidad Pontifica Comillas, Madrid, Spain
- Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de Compostela, Spain
- Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, Spain
- Universitat de Barcelona, Spain
- Universitat de Girona, Spain
- Universidad de Alicante, Spain
- Chalmers University of Technology, Göteborg, Sweden
- Lund Institute of Technology, Sweden
- Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden
- Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden
- University of Uppsala, Sweden
- ETH Zurich, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, Switzerland
- Università della Svizzera italiana, Switzerland
- Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey
- Boğaziçi University, Istanbul, Turkey
- Istanbul Technical University, Turkey
- Sabancı University, Istanbul, Turkey
- Koç University Istanbul, Turkey
- Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, United Kingdom
- Imperial College London, United Kingdom
- University of Bristol, United Kingdom
- University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom
- University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST), United Kingdom
- University of Nottingham, United Kingdom
- University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, United Kingdom
|
The Americas
- Ecole Polytechnique de Montréal, Canada
- Université de Montréal, Canada
- Université Laval, Canada
- McGill University, Canada
- University of Waterloo, Canada
- Cornell University, United States
- Michigan Technological University, United States
- Iowa State University, United States
- University of California, Berkeley, United States
- Carnegie Mellon University, United States
- Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education, Mexico
- Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, Chile
Asia
- Fudan University, China
- Peking University, China
- Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China
- Tsinghua University, China
- Hong Kong University of Science & Technology, Hong Kong
- The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
- Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India
- Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, India
- Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, India
- Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, India
- Indian Institute of Technology Madras, India
- Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, India
- Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, India
- Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, India
- Indian Institute of Information Technology, Allahabad, India
- Nara Institute of Science and Technology, Japan
- Osaka University, Japan
- The University of Tokyo, Japan
- Tohoku University, Japan
- Shibaura Institute of Technology, Japan
- KAIST (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology), South Korea
- Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
- National University of Singapore, Singapore
See also
Swiss federal institutes of technology and research (ETH domain) |
Budget 2008 (CHF mil.)
|
ETH Domain
|
1'939,0
|
Institutes of technology
|
|
994,0
488,0
|
Federal Laboratories
|
|
238,0
86,3
49,9
49,1
|
References
- ^ http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2011
- ^ "THE Top European universities in Engineering". http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=414302&c=1.
- ^ "Leiden Ranking 2010 Results". http://media.leidenuniv.nl/legacy/leidenr-2010-eu100-lichtgroen.pdf.
- ^ "2010 academic ranking of world universities by Shanghai Jiao Tong University". Shanghai Jiao Tong University. 2010-09-08. http://www.arwu.org/FieldENG2010.jsp. Retrieved 2010-09-08.
- ^ epfl.ch - Manuel Castells
- ^ epfl.ch - News (April 15, 2008)
- ^ epfl.ch - News (October 20, 2009)
- ^ epfl.ch - News (October 11, 2010)
- ^ epfl.ch - News (October 11, 2010)
- ^ epfl.ch - partner institutions
External links
|
|
Public Universities |
|
|
Public Universities of Applied Sciences |
|
|
Accredited Institutions,
By CRUS |
|
|
|
|
Austria |
|
|
Belgium |
|
|
Czech Republic |
|
|
Denmark |
|
|
Finland |
|
|
France |
|
|
Germany |
|
|
Greece |
|
|
Hungary |
|
|
Italy |
|
|
Norway |
|
|
Poland |
|
|
Portugal |
|
|
Russian Federation |
|
|
Spain |
|
|
Sweden |
|
|
Switzerland |
|
|
Turkey |
|
|
United Kingdom |
|
|
|
|