| ENSTA ParisTech | |
|---|---|
| École Nationale Supérieure de Techniques Avancées | |
| Established | 1741;[1] 1970[2] |
| Type | Public ; under military supervision |
| President | Gen. Yves Demay[3] |
| Academic staff | 180 permanent ; 650 temporary[4] |
| Students | 480[4] |
| Location | Paris, France |
| Website | http://www.ensta.org |
The École Nationale Supérieure de Techniques Avancées (Superior National School of Advanced Techniques), also known as ENSTA, is one of the most prestigious and selective French grande école in engineering. It is a member of ParisTech (Paris Institute of Technology).
It is located in Paris, in the former premises of SUPAERO; it has an annex in Palaiseau (), next to École polytechnique.
Every year about 150 engineers graduate from it.
ENSTA offers its students general engineering training with the aim of enabling them to design, produce and oversee complex industrial systems, while meeting strict economic constraints and dealing with an international environment. To do this, the School provides high-level scientific and technological training, which is frequently updated to keep pace with changes in the leading edge technologies and supplemented by language, general culture, law and economics teaching.
The teaching is given by research professors at ENSTA with the participation of numerous auxiliary teachers from the economic and industrial world familiar with the latest technical developments in a wide variety of fields.
Research, which is one of the School's primary missions, makes a dynamic contribution in both the fundamental and applied fields, to the School's pedagogical project and to meeting the needs of business. Half is the responsibility of the School's research professors, and the other half is carried out by researchers from the CNRS, the INSERM and the École polytechnique working in ENSTA's premises.
The general nature of the training given enables ENSTA graduates to find a career in a large number of sectors such as the automotive or naval industry, networks and telecommunications, space propulsion, robotics, oceanology and the environment. Most of the ENSTA graduate engineers are much sought-after by companies and generally find their first job in R&D departments and design offices, rapidly moving towards supervisory and project management posts.
ENSTA is a public teaching and research establishment operating under the supervision of the Ministry of Defence. It is headed by a general officer of the Corps of Ordnance Ingineers (DGA). Some former graduates of École polytechnique attend ENSTA before joining the military Corps of Ordnance Ingineers, which staffs the DGA.
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Originally, the School was the brainchild of Henri-Louis Duhamel du Monceau, inspector general of the Navy. He had identified the need to give the Navy's master carpenters a theoretical education, particularly in mathematics and physics, which were making quick progress, so that they would have a clearer understanding of their trade.
After founding the first school in Toulon, he transferred it to Paris in 1741. This date is recognised as the origin of the institution. After undergoing 7 lean years of under-funding, he managed to persuade the duc de Choiseul to reopen it in 1765, and continued to run the school for the rest of his life.
At the time, the institute, called School of Engineer-Constructors of Royal Vessels, was housed in the Louvre Palace. Later on, it became known as "Ecole nationale supérieure du Génie Maritime" (National Higher College of Maritime Engineering).
In 1970, the Délégation Générale pour l'Armement (Arms administration of the Ministry of Defence) merged the school with three of its other establishments:
- the École Nationale Supérieure des Poudres (Powders and explosives institute)
- the École Nationale Supérieure de l'Armement (Arms engineering institute)
- the École des Ingénieurs Hydrographes de la Marine (Hydrographic institute.
This formed the École Nationale Supérieure de Techniques Avancées (ENSTA), the role of which is to train engineers in the naval, mechanical, nuclear, chemical, electronic and related fields. The scientific skills of each of the founding institutes survives in the broad range of research disciplines covered at ENSTA, as well as in the more general nature of its teaching and the variety of specialities offered to the students.
Today, ENSTA's legal status is that of a "public administrative establishment", placed under the supervision of the Ministry of Defence.
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