École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne

École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne
Established 1853, Opened 1869
Type Public
Budget 753 millions CHF
President Patrick Aebischer
Undergraduates ~ 5,000
Postgraduates ~ 1,800
Location Ecublens (near Lausanne), Vaud, Switzerland
Campus Urban
Nationalities 100+
Website epfl.ch
EPFL

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:

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.

Contents

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:

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:

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:

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

Photographs

Partner universities

EPFL has 179 partner universities around the globe.[10]

Europe

The Americas

Asia

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

  1. ^ http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2011
  2. ^ "THE Top European universities in Engineering". http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=414302&c=1. 
  3. ^ "Leiden Ranking 2010 Results". http://media.leidenuniv.nl/legacy/leidenr-2010-eu100-lichtgroen.pdf. 
  4. ^ "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. 
  5. ^ epfl.ch - Manuel Castells
  6. ^ epfl.ch - News (April 15, 2008)
  7. ^ epfl.ch - News (October 20, 2009)
  8. ^ epfl.ch - News (October 11, 2010)
  9. ^ epfl.ch - News (October 11, 2010)
  10. ^ epfl.ch - partner institutions

External links