The École pratique des hautes études (EPHE) is a Grand Établissement in Paris, France. It is counted among France's most prestigious research and higher education institutions.
The EPHE brings together 240 faculty members and about 3,000 students/attenders into three core departments called “Sections” : Earth and Life Sciences, Historical and Philological Sciences, and Religious Sciences. In all Sections, tutoring and immediate induction in research practice are at the core of teaching in the different degree programs.
The EPHE is headquartered in Paris, and is present in many locations in France. Teaching and research in human sciences are conducted in Paris, notably at the Sorbonne, the historical house of the former University of Paris. In the Earth and Life Sciences Section, they are dispensed at the EPHE's many laboratories (Paris and its region, Nancy, Dijon, Lyon, Grenoble, Montpellier, Perpignan, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Caen, Dinard, French Polynesia).
The EPHE confers the Master's and Doctorate degrees, and the postdoctoral Habilitation à Diriger des Recherches. The School also offers its specific postgraduate degrees – the “Diplôme EPHE” and the “Diplôme post-doctoral” – as well as joint degrees with other universities.
The EPHE maintains extensive cooperative exchanges with universities and research institutions worldwide. Priority areas of cooperation are in Europe, the Mediterranean and Asia.
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The Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes was established by imperial decree on 31 July 1868 at the initiative of Victor_Duruy, then Minister of Education under Emperor Napoleon III. Its purpose was to introduce research in academia and, more importantly, to promote academic training through research, thereby advancing a practical form of scholarship designed to produce knowledge and to be taught in seminars and laboratories, as was being practiced in Germany at the time. Faculty members were to distinguish themselves by their dedication, their availability, their accessibility to all, and by advancing a form of education dispensed within the framework of a direct relationship between the master and his disciple.
The School originally had four Sections: First established were Mathematics, Physics, and Chemistry; Natural Sciences and Physiology; Philological and Historical Sciences. The Economics Section followed in 1869, but was not developed. The Religious Sciences Section was added in 1886. A sixth Section, called Economic and Social Sciences, was created in the following century after the Second World War.
Three Sections subsist today: Earth and Life Sciences, Historical and Philological Sciences, Religious Sciences. The sixth Section was separated, giving birth in 1975 to the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS).
Many renowned scholars have lectured at the EPHE or worked in its laboratories[1]. We may cite the following: Émile Benveniste (1928-1975), Fernand Braudel (1938-1953), Claude Bernard, Marcellin Berthelot, Michel Bréal (1893-1913), Paul Broca, Jean-Baptiste Charcot, Henry Corbin (1938-1977), Georges Dumézil (1933-1967), Lucien Febvre (1943-1947), Étienne Gilson (1930-1941), Marcel Granet (1930-1939), Joseph Halévy (1887-1916), Bernard Halpern, Alexandre Kojève (1933-1939), Alexandre Koyré (1931-1961), Camille-Ernest Labrousse (1936-1952), Claude Lévi-Strauss (1950-1967), Sylvain Lévi, Alfred Loisy, Auguste Longnon (1887-1911), Gaston Maspero (1872-1915), Louis Massignon (1932-1957), Marcel Mauss (1930-1938), Gabriel Monod (1887-1911), Gaston Paris (1887-1904), Lucie Randoin, Jean Rouch (1959-1992), Émile Roux, Ferdinand de Saussure, William Henry Waddington, Henri Wallon…
Since 2006, the EPHE has been setting up specialized centers which draw on the same scientific resources of the Sections, but whose primary purpose is to develop disciplinary expertise and vocational training, and to disseminate scholarly knowledge. Three institutes have been established to date : The European Institute of Religious Sciences (IESR)[2], the Pacific Coral Reef Institute (IRCP) and the Transdisciplinary Institute for the Study of Aging (ITEV).
More recently the EPHE has undertaken, as one of nine project sponsors, to create a new research campus in the human and social sciences, the “Campus Condorcet”[3]. Finally, the school has just founded with eleven other institutions in Paris the Pole for Research and Higher Education (PRES) “Hesam”[4], which will cover the human and social sciences, the sciences of public and business administration, and engineering sciences.
Courses at the EPHE are taught in accordance with the institution’s founding educational principle: to train in research by means of adapted practice in lectures, seminars or lab sessions, in the following areas: Earth and Life Sciences; Historical and Philological Sciences; Religious Sciences.
This tradition, which has endured since the founding of the EPHE, is at the root of the EPHE’s main vocation in preparing for research degrees today.
Studies programs:
The EPHE also confers the Habilitation à diriger des recherches (HDR) and offers joint university degrees (“DIU”) in collaboration with other institutions.
The Earth and Life Sciences Section groups faculty and laboratories in Paris and throughout France. All laboratories have joint research units in place with other institutions (universities, CNRS, INSERM, INRA, MNHN). One laboratory is in French Polynesia on the island of Moorea, where the EPHE has a research station. The School also has a station in coastal geomorphology in Dinard on the coast of Brittany. The Section’s research is carried out within four networks: environment and cellular regulation; neurosciences; environment and Society; biodiversity dynamics.
The Historical and Philological Sciences Section covers the study of languages, the explanation and commentary of documentary sources, written and book history, and the history of knowledge. Geographically, the emphasis is on the Mediterranean, Asia and Europe, where writing was earliest developed. It remains a field of choice for philological and, more generally, scholarly criticism of written and unwritten sources, aimed at resolving questions of language and history. The Section may also be regarded as one large laboratory devoted to the study of works, cultures and power systems in periods preceding contemporary times, and reaching back over a very long time span within a vast Eurasian area.
In 2010, the Section included 92 full professors and lecturers, and it welcomes every year a large number of foreign scholars as guest fellows.
Topics covered by the Historical and Philological Sciences Section fall into eight broad categories[5]:
Historical and Philological Sciences Publications : The Historical and Philological Sciences Section publishes two collections at Editions Honoré Champion[6]:
It also publishes six other collections at the publisher Droz Publisher[7]:
Established in 1886, the Religious Sciences Section is reputed for its original scholarship in the subject of religions, which it examines in a secular and cross-cultural spirit. By emphasizing comparative and interdisciplinary study, it is the only academic body in France to cover this field so extensively, using a wide range of scientific approaches. The Section’s teaching in the area of research extends into the most diverse cultural and linguistic fields, from Antiquity to modern and contemporary times. Strongly committed to the philological tradition, it also naturally draws on disciplines or resources as diverse and complementary as history, archeology, iconology, law, philosophy, ethnology, anthropology and sociology, as well as the cinema and new technologies.
The Section included 54 full professors and 12 lecturers in 2010, and it welcomes every year a large number of foreign scholars as guest fellows. Topics covered may be grouped in nine broad categories[8]:
The Religious Sciences Section publishes two collections:
The Doctoral School is also responsible for the attribution of scholarships, grants and financial aid. It implements the EPHE’s doctoral studies program in accordance with the plan defined in the institution’s quadriennal contract. It operates with other services of the EPHE such as the Education and International Relations divisions. The Doctoral School is organized along three subject areas: