École spéciale de Lausanne, 1857Louis Rivier, founding member of École spéciale de Lausanne
The roots of modern-day EPFL can be traced back to the foundation of a private school under the name École spéciale de Lausanne in 1853 at the initiative of Louis Rivier, a graduate of the École Centrale Paris and John Gay, the then professor and rector of the Académie de Lausanne. At its inception it had only 11 students and the offices was located at Rue du Valentin in Lausanne.
In 1869, it became the technical department of the Académie de Lausanne. When the Académie 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 ETH Zurich, is thus directly controlled by the Swiss Federal Council.
In 1946, there were 360 students at EPFL. In 1969, the university had grown to 1,400 students and 55 faculty members.
In the past two decades, EPFL has grown rapidly in reputation and size. As of 2023, EPFL has more than 13,000 full-time students.
The environment at modern day EPFL is highly international with the school attracting students and researchers from all over the world. More than 125 countries are represented on the campus and the university has two official languages, French and English.
Academics
Admission
Holders of a Swiss "maturité gymnasiale" are directly accepted with no other condition in the first year of their Bachelor's program of choice.
Holders of a Swiss Professional "Maturité" or a Swiss specialised "Maturité" are accepted in the Cours de mathématiques spéciales within the places available.
As such, EPFL is not selective in its undergraduate admission procedure for Swiss residents.
However, international students are required to have a final grade average of 80% or above of the maximum grade of the upper secondary school national system.
Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology (ETH) Domain
The real selection process happens during the first year of undergraduate studies. This period is called the propaedeutic cycle and the students must pass a block examination of all the courses taken during the first year at the end of the cycle.
If the weighted average is insufficient, a student is required to retake the entire first year of coursework if they wish to continue their studies at EPFL. Roughly 60% of students fail the first year at EPFL all majors combined, and many choose to drop out rather than to repeat the propaedeutic cycle.[11]
The failure rate differs between majors, it is higher for Life Sciences Engineering, Physics, Mathematics and Electrical Engineering where only 30–40% of students pass the first year.
For foreign students, the selection procedure towards the undergraduate program is rather strict, and since most undergraduate courses are taught in French, foreign students must provide documentation of having acquired a level B2 proficiency in French as measured on the CEFR scale, though C1 proficiency is recommended.
The usual time till graduation is six semesters (3 years) for the Bachelor of Science degree and four additional semesters (2 years) for the Master of Science degree with the final semester dedicated to writing a thesis. Though only 58% of the students who manage to graduate are able to graduate within this time-period.[11]
The possibility to study abroad for one or two semesters is offered during the 3rd year of studies as 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.
Entrepreneurship is actively encouraged at EPFL, as evident by the EPFL Innovation Park being an integral part of the campus. Since 1997, 12 start-ups have been created per year on average by EPFL students and faculty. In the year 2013, a total of 105 million CHF was raised by EPFL start-ups.[12]
In 2023, the QS World University Rankings ranks EPFL 16th worldwide across all fields, and among the 10 best universities in several engineering disciplines. Times Higher Education ranks EPFL as the world's 19th best school in the world for Engineering and Technology.[18][19]
EPFL typically scores high on faculty to student ratio, international outlook and scientific impact. The CWTS Leiden Ranking[20] that "aims to provide highly accurate measurements of the scientific impact of universities" ranks EPFL world 13th, and 1st in Europe in the 2013 rankings for all the sciences.
The Times 100 Under 50 Rankings is a ranking of the top 100 universities in the world under 50 years old. Since EPFL in its current form was formed in 1969, it is included in this ranking, and was ranked 1st in the world for three years in a row in 2015,[21] 2016 [22][23] and 2017,[24] and 2nd in the world in 2018 and 2019.[23][24][25][26]
Times Higher Education also ranked EPFL as the most international university in the world two years in a row 2014[27] and 2015.[28]
The École d'ingénieurs de l'Université de Lausanne, from which EPFL in its modern-day form originates, was located in the center of Lausanne. In 1974, five years after EPFL was separated from University of Lausanne and became a federal institute under its current name, the construction of a new campus at Dorigny in Écublens, began. The inauguration of the first EPFL buildings of the new campus took place in 1978.
The EPFL campus has been evolving ever since. The first stage of development, with a total budget of 462 million Swiss francs, was completed in 1984; the second in 1990.
Construction of the northern parts of campus began in 1995 with the Microtechnology building (BM), completed in 1998, and the architecture building (SG), completed in 2000. In 2002, the department of architecture also moved to the campus in Écublens, uniting all departments of EPFL on the same site. The latest addition to the EPFL campus is the Rolex Learning Center completed in February 2010. The Rolex Learning Center is the main campus library and includes areas for work, leisure and services and is located at the center of the campus. The campus has also been expanded with the construction of the SwissTech Convention Center inaugurated in March 2014. As of 2022, RTS began the construction of a regional production center on campus in collaboration with EPFL.[29]
The campus is served by the Lausanne Metro Line 1 (M1) and is equipped with an electric bicycle sharing system.[30] Since 2012, only electricity from certified hydroelectric generation is being bought by EPFL to power its campus. The university was the first campus to receive the International Sustainable Campus Excellence Award by the International Sustainable Campus Network.[31]
Of the 14,000 people that work and study at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne campus, roughly 9.300 are students in either Bachelor, Master or Doctoral programs, the remaining 4,700 being administrative staff, scientists, technical staff, professors and the entrepreneurs located in the Science Park EPFL7. More than 125 nationalities are represented on campus with 48% of the student population being foreign nationals.[32]
The campus consists of about 65 buildings on 136 acres (55 ha). Built according to the growth of the school, the campus includes different types of architectures:
Late 1970s–1980s: modularised building, used today by the Schools of Basic Sciences and Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Mechanical and Electrical Engineering
1990s: 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.
2014: The SwissTech Convention Center and the "Quartier Nord" (convention center, student accommodation, shops...)
The EPFL-Pavilions building (previously Artlab), designed by Japanese architect Kengo Kuma, was opened in November 2016; it includes three spaces opened to the public. The first one hosts archives from the Montreux Jazz Festival; the second is a space for museum experimentations. The third space, named DataSquare, hosts an exposition on Big data, illustrated by two scientific projects from EPFL: the Human Brain Project and the Venice Time Machine.
Beyond its main campus, EPFL operates a network of associated campuses in Western Switzerland, often sharing these spaces with partner academic institutions and hospitals:
The Language Centre offers language and communication modules for French, German, Italian and English (CEFR levels A1 to C2)[41] to enable learners to participate more effectively in academic, professional and social situations in an internationalized multilingual and multicultural context. These modules are reserved for EPFL students, staff members and for their spouses.[42]
Tandems are also organized and set up within the framework of the Tandem Program of the Faculty of Arts/EFLE of the University of Lausanne. This concept includes two people of different first languages meeting regularly to teach each other their respective language.[43]
Students and traditions
Student body
The number of students attending studying at EPFL has been rising heavily since EPFL was formed in 1969 under its current name. In 1969 EPFL had roughly 1400 students; that number had grown to 2367 by 1982, 4302 by 1997, 9921 students in 2014, and 10,536 students at the end of 2016.[44] Within the student body, 112 different nationalities are represented. In the period from 1982 to 2014 the female proportion of the student body has increased from 12% to 27%. The proportion of female students is lowest at the School of Computer Science and Communication (15%) and highest at the School of Life Sciences (49%).[45]
The school encourages the formation of associations and sports activities on campus. As of 2023, there are nearly a hundred clubs and associations on campus for recreational and social purposes.[46] In addition, the school has its own monthly newspaper, Flash. Included in the 79 associations are
AGEPoly is the Student's Association. Its purpose is to represent the EPFL's students, defend the general interests of the students and inform and consult its members on decisions of the EPFL Direction that concern them.[47]
The Forum is a student association responsible for organization of the Forum EPFL. The Forum was founded in 1982 as a platform for exchange and meeting between the academic and professional communities. Today, it is one of the largest recruiting events in Europe, and the largest in Switzerland.[48]
UNIPOLY is the EPFL Association for Ecology, the Association works to create awareness of ecology on campus and in western Switzerland. UNIPOLY is part of the World Student Community for Sustainable Development, an international network of student organizations for sustainable development consisting of EPFL, ETH Zurich, MIT, University of Tokyo, University of Fort Hare, University of Nairobi, Chalmers, and University of Yaounde.[49]
The Anime and Manga club, PolyJapan, schedules viewings of seasonal anime on a regular basis.
Polympiads is promoting mathematics and informatics through competitions. They organise the Helvetic Coding Contest, Switzerland's biggest programming competition.[50]
Several music festivals are held yearly. The largest one is the Balélec Festival, organized in May each year since 1981.[51] The festival welcomes 15,000 visitors to around 30 concerts.[52][53][54]
Archimedean Oath
EPFL was the birthplace of the Archimedean Oath, proposed by students in 1990.[55] The Archimedean Oath has since spread to a number of European engineering schools. The Archimedean Oath is an ethical code of practice for engineers and technicians, similar to the Hippocratic Oath used in the medical world.
Harassment and sexism
In 2020, the student association Polyquity published numerous testimonies from students via an Instagram account @payetonepfl denouncing cases of sexual, homophobic and racist harassment as well as cases of rape within the associations present on campus but also within the teaching staff.[56] The student association denounces serious failings of the institution that is supposed to manage harassment.[57]
EPFL is the official scientific advisor of Alinghi, twice winners of the America's cup 2003 and 2007.
Solar Impulse is a Swiss long-range solar powered aircraft project developed at EPFL, the project has now achieved the first circumnavigation of the world using only solar power.
The Hydroptère, is an experimental sailing hydrofoil that in 2009 broke the world speed sailing record, sustaining a speed of 52.86 knots (97.90 km/h; 60.83 mph) for 500m in 30 knots of wind[58]
EPFL contributed to the construction of SwissCube-1.[59] It is the first satellite entirely built in Switzerland. It was put into orbit on 23 September 2009 by the Indian launcher PSLV.
To better understand the relationship between nutrition and the brain, EPFL and the Nestlé research center has signed a five-year agreement providing 5 million CHF each year for the creation of two new chairs at the EPFL Brain Mind Institute.
Logitech and EPFL has announced the creation of the EPFL Logitech Incubator that will provide financial, educational and operational support in entrepreneurship to researchers and students.
The Human Brain Project is the successor of the EPFL Blue Brain Project. The project is directed by EPFL and involves 86 institutions across Europe. The total cost is estimated at 1.190 billion euros.[60]
EPFL has hosted the UNESCO Chair in Technologies for Development since 2007, where notable papers are presented by experts in the field. In 2014, Mobile Financial Services in Disaster Relief: Modeling Sustainability was presented by technology analyst, David Garrity.[61]
EPFL is organised into eight schools and colleges, themselves formed of institutes that group research units (laboratories or chairs) around common themes:
The school had directors from 1853 to 1969. In 1969, the school was separated from the rest of the University of Lausanne and became a federal institute. The presidents are:[67]
Solar Impulse achieved the first round-the-world solar flight.
Human Brain Project: a large 10-year scientific research project, established in 2013, coordinated by Henry Markram (EPFL) and largely funded by the European Union.[70] It aims to provide a collaborative informatics infrastructure and first draft rodent and human whole brain models within its 10-year funding period. It includes 112 research partners in 24 countries in Europe as well as outside Europe.[71]
(in French) Michel Pont, Chronique de l'EPFL 1978-2000, Presses polytechniques et universitaires romandes, 2010 (ISBN9782880748760).
(in French) Libero Zuppiroli, La bulle universitaire. Faut-il poursuivre le rêve américain ? [The academic bubble. Should we pursue the American dream?], Éditions d'en bas, 2010, 176 pages (ISBN978-2-8290-0385-1). The first part, entitled "Le parcours exemplaire du Swiss Institute of Technology Lausanne" [The exemplary path of the Swiss Institute of Technology in Lausanne], is about the change of the EPFL after the appointment of Patrick Aebischer as president.
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