Sciences Po

Sciences Po stands out for combining approaches and confronting different worldviews. This tradition of diversity and multidisciplinary approach makes Sciences Po an active participant in public debate, a forum where thought meets action.

Sciences Po is an international research university, both selective and open onto the world, ranking among the finest institutions in the fields of humanities and social sciences.

Sciences Po's overarching mission is to educate future leaders in the public and private sectors. However, its ambition extends even further: to educate open-minded and enlightened citizens capable of changing the world and transforming society.

Driven forward by this vocation for nearly 150 years, today Sciences Po stands out as a world-class university: internationally-recognised degrees and research, a multicultural community and a worldwide network of partners.

At Sciences Po, the finest researchers in the social sciences engage in continual dialogue with the greatest practitioners. With an academic community of more than 4,000 academics including 2,400 practitioners, the knowledge we transmit to students is nurtured by innovative research and rooted in reality.

Sciences Po recruits its students on the basis of academic excellence. Nevertheless, it was one of the first institutions of higher learning to have fully assumed its social responsibilities by promoting intellectual, geographic and social diversity in its student body. Open to all talents, Sciences Po recruits students in nearly 150 countries and provides financial support to 27 % of its student body.

Sciences Po is a research university in the social sciences, internationally recognised for the quality of its scientific output. Developed with a strong focus on society, research conducted at Sciences Po enriches public debate.

Since it was founded nearly 150 years ago, Sciences Po has never stopped reinventing itself. More than anything, Sciences Po today is a place where new ideas can be put forward and implemented. Educational methods, academic openness, inventive tools: this flair for innovation is one of our trademarks.

The Emile Boutmy scholarship, named after the founder of Sciences Po, allows the best international students from outside of the European Union to study at Sciences Po. In 2015, the Emile Boutmy scholarship was awarded to 220 students from many backgrounds and countries of origin including Ghana, China, Egypt and the United States.

Sciences Po has served the general interest ever since its founding. This social responsibility influences all of our activities: student recruitment, education, research and institutional governance.

The proportion of students benefiting from financial support has grown fourfold over the past decade. Today, 27 % of students receive grants and other support on the basis of social criteria. This rate exceeds most other selective institutions of higher learning.

This achievement is the result of a proactive financial support policy combined with the Equal Opportunity and Diversity programme. This specific path to admission concerns more than 100 secondary schools located in underprivileged areas throughout France. Today, this social diversity goes hand in hand with geographic diversity: in September 2015, first-year students at the Sciences Po Undergraduate College came from 878 secondary schools .

Sciences Po’s student body brings together 13,000 students, half of whom are international. In 2015, students accepted to Sciences Po represented 150 nationalities.

To attract the best students from all over the world, every year Sciences Po awards 200 Émile Boutmy excellence scholarships, named after the founder of Sciences Po.

Sciences Po is committed to promoting true gender equality among all of the institution's stakeholders.

On 18 June 2015, Sciences Po President Frédéric Mion joined UN Women’s HeForShe solidarity movement as an IMPACT 10x10x10 champion, making Sciences Po one of 10 universities around the world committing to take bold, game-changing action to achieve gender equality within and beyond their institutions.

The field of higher education and research is not immune from sexual harassment: through its Guidelines for dealing with sexual harassment (pdf, 562 Ko), Sciences Po provides its different stakeholders with information on sexual harassment and sexual violence. The sexual harassment monitoring unit also offers support to victims and witnesses of misconduct, with a commitment to putting an end to such behaviour.

Intellectually curious and broad-minded, Sciences Po graduates from all backgrounds share the ability to “learn how to learn”, a foremost priority in our educational model.

Sciences Po aims to offer education firmly rooted in five social science disciplines: economics, law, history, sociology and political science. It stands out for a multidisciplinary approach and a focus on students' ability to understand and analyse complexity. This is an indispensable quality to move forward in constantly changing environments.

At Sciences Po, academic knowledge goes hand in hand with professional development, and general knowledge complements a sense of action. Students are encouraged to assume responsibility thanks to the teaching of more than 4,000 academics including 2,400 practitioners, (corporate executives, senior French and international civil servants, etc.) and internships, which are an integral part of the students' course of study.

At Sciences Po, an international spirit pervades every dimension of academic and student life: learning to work as early as possible with classmates from different cultural backgrounds and in different languages; developing a broader worldview thanks to compulsory year-long study-abroad programmes; studying every subject essential to understanding Europe and the world.

Since its creation in 1872, Sciences Po has been an institution in perpetual motion, constantly innovating and pushing back boundaries.

Thanks to its innovative educational model, the university instituted an interactive form of pedagogy in the form of lectures bringing together small groups of students and instructors from the senior ranks of the French civil service and the business world, as well as academics.

Thanks to its scientific ambition, it implemented a pluralistic approach to “political sciences” (law, history, sociology, geography, economics) and an original focus on contemporary and foreign societies, thereby linking research and practical teaching.

Sciences Po possesses three unique qualities in French higher education. Thanks to its status as a private institution incorporated as a joint stock company, it had the freedom to choose its students, faculty members and programmes.