École Centrale Paris
Motto | Leader, Entrepreneur, Innovateur |
---|---|
Type | Public, Grand établissement |
Established | 1829 |
President | Hervé Biausser |
Students | 1,394 |
Location | Châtenay-Malabry, France |
Affiliations | UniverSud Paris, Centrale Graduate School, CESAER |
Website | http://www.ecp.fr |
Coordinates: 48°45′56.8″N 2°17′18.3″E / 48.765778°N 2.288417°E
École Centrale Paris (ECP, also referred to as Centrale) is a French institute of research and education in engineering and science. It is also known by its original name École Centrale des Arts et Manufactures.
Founded in 1829, it is among the oldest engineering schools in France and is widely regarded as one of the top grandes écoles. The school also has special status as a Grand établissement.
In 2015, École Centrale Paris merged with Supélec to form CentraleSupélec, which is a member of the new Université Paris-Saclay.
History
Ecole Centrale Paris was founded in 1829 by means of a private initiative by Alphonse Lavallée, who became its first president, and three scientists who became founding associates: Eugène Peclet, Jean-Baptiste Dumas, and Théodore Olivier.[1] The founding vision was to educate multidisciplinary engineers for the emerging industrial sector in France. The institution was offered to the French state in 1857 by its creator, Alphonse Lavallée.
Partnerships
École Centrale Paris is one of the Centrale Graduate Schools associated as the Groupe Centrale network with its sister institutions (Lille, Lyon, Marseille, Nantes, Beijing, Hyderabad (with Mahindra Group) and Casablanca).
Since 1837, the school has established international research and education partnerships with several leading universities, such as University of Cambridge, ETH Zurich, Harvard, Indian Institutes of Technology, KAIST, Keio, MIT, NTUA, National University of Singapore, RWTH Aachen, Tsinghua University and TU Delft. It was a founding member of the TIME (Top Industrial Managers for Europe) network among leading European engineering schools, and also a member of the UniverSud Paris and the CESAER association of European engineering schools.[2]
Campus
Initially located in the Hôtel de Juigné (now Hôtel Salé and home to the Musée Picasso), the main campus of the school was transferred to rue Montgolfier in 1884, where it stayed until 1969. Its current location neighbours the Parc de Sceaux.
Former location of the École Centrale, rue Montgolfier in Paris (3rd arrondissement):
The school is now located at Châtenay-Malabry, Hauts-de-Seine, a southern suburb of Paris, France (in the Île-de-France region), next to the Parc de Sceaux and its Château de Sceaux. Within the main campus at Châtenay Malabry, ECP hosts eight laboratories:
- Molecular and Macroscopic Energy, Combustion[3]
- System Analysis and Macroeconomics Modeling[4]
- Industrial Engineering[5]
- Chemical Engineering and Materials Processing Laboratory[6]
- Applied Mathematics[7]
- Soil and Structure Mechanics[8]
- Technology and Strategy[9]
- Solids Structure and Properties[10]
Most of the 2000 students at École Centrale Paris stay in dedicated on-campus student residences, which is located near the research labs and easily accessible via public transport.
Admission
Most French students who are admitted to Ecole Centrale Paris have completed 2 to 3 years of post high school education in sciences through the classes préparatoires or prépas, which corresponds to (freshman and sophomore years at US universities. The entrance examination to the grandes écoles including Ecole Centrale Paris is taken at the end of their second year (Mathématiques spéciales).
For its general engineering program leading to the degree Diplôme d'ingénieur, Ecole Centrale Paris recruits among the top 4% of students in classes préparatoires for a quota of about 400 students, as well as about 50 top students from overseas partner universities after a highly selective process each year.[11] A small number of places is also reserved for students who have succesfully completed a 3-year undergraduate program in a French university.
Curriculum
The general engineering program at Centrale is multidisciplinary and typically lasts between 3 to 4 years. The curriculum is similar to those offered at other general engineering schools (écoles d'ingénieurs généralistes). All courses are taught in either French or English.
During the first year (Tronc Commun, or Common Core), students are required to study several subjects in science (mathematics, quantum physics, biology…), engineering (continuum mechanics, heat transfer, algorithms, programming…), as well as social sciences (economics, management, foreign languages…). In the second year, students are given the option to choose elective courses but with heavy emphasis in science nevertheless. The first two years are also used to train students in various research, startup and industry projects. In the third year, students can choose to major (specialize) in a particular field depending on their academic and professional interests. Upon graduation, students receive the degree of Diplôme d'Ingénieur (equivalent to Master of Science) along with the title of Ingénieur diplômé, which is more commonly called Ingénieur centralien.
The Graduate School
The school offers a broad range of specialized master's programmes in science and engineering (one-year or two-year programs).[12]
It also offers various Ph.D. programmes for holders of a master's degree. More than 200 doctoral candidates currently work in one of the eight laboratories of the school.
Alumni
The following is a non-exhaustive list of notable alumni of the school, also commonly referred to as Centraliens.
Name (Year of graduation):
- Norbert Rillieux (1830), designer of the multiple-effect evaporator sparking a revolution in the sugar industry[13]
- Gustave Eiffel (1855), designer of the Eiffel Tower and the internal structure of the Statue of Liberty
- William Le Baron Jenney (1856), architect of the first steel framed building in Chicago, the 1891 Fair Store, a department store.
- Georges Leclanché (1860), created the Leclanché cell
- Émile Levassor and René Panhard (1864), founders of the first automobile manufacturing company, Panhard et Levassor
- André Michelin (1877), founder of Michelin
- Edmond Coignet (1879) a pioneer of reinforced concrete
- Louis Blériot (1895), aviation pioneer, first pilot to cross the Channel
- Georges Darrieus, French aeronautical engineer, famous for his invention of Darrieus wind turbine
- Armand Peugeot (1895), founder of automobile maker Peugeot (Peugeot PSA)
- Solomon Lefschetz (1905), American mathematician
- Pierre-Georges Latécoère (1906), aeronautics pioneer, founder of Latécoère and L'Aéropostale (founding company of Air France)
- Marcel Schlumberger (1907), co-founder of Schlumberger Limited
- Etienne Oehmichen (1908), pioneer of helicopters
- Boris Vian (1942), writer
- Mehdi Bazargan, former Iranian Prime Minister
- Francis Bouygues (1947), founder of Bouygues
- Jacques Maisonrouge (1948), Corporate Executive at IBM
- Gérard Pélisson (1955), founder of the Accor group (Novotel, Sofitel, Mercure, and All Seasons hotels)
- Robert Peugeot, Peugeot holding president as of 2005
- Antoine (1966), singer
- Henri Gouraud (1967), computer scientist
- Sébastien Candel (1968), physicist and professor, Vice President of the French Academy of Sciences
- Justin Ndioro (1972), former Cameroonian Minister of Finances (1993–1996)
- Étienne Klein, physicist and professor, Research Director of the CEA
- François Goulard (1976), French delegate minister for research (2005–2007)[14]
- Benoît Potier (1979), CEO of Air Liquide
- Pierre Chappaz (1982), founder of Kelkoo
- Charbel Farhat (1983), professor at Stanford University
- Bernard Liautaud (1984), founder of Business Objects
- Édouard Michelin (born 1963) (1987), former CEO of Michelin
- Driss Ben-Brahim (1987), investor and highest paid trader in London
- Charles Beigbeder (1988), CEO of Poweo[15]
- Bruno Iksil (1991), the 'London Whale'
- Jean-Sebastien Jacques (1994), Rio Tinto CEO
- Fabrice Tourre (2000), the 'Fabulous Fab'
Notable faculty
They include:
- Eugène Péclet, physicist, gave his name to the Péclet number
- Jean Baptiste Dumas, chemist
- Gustave-Gaspard Coriolis, gave his name to the Coriolis effect
- Jean-Daniel Colladon, Swiss engineer and physicist
- Anselme Payen, chemist, discovered the first enzyme
- Mathematicians Joseph Liouville, Émile Picard, Paul Appell and Jacques Hadamard
- Raymond Barre, (Vice-president of the European Commission in the 1960s and French prime minister in the 1970s), Professor of economics in 1960s
- Sébastien Candel, physicist and Professor, foreign member of the American National Academy of Engineering and AIAA fellow
- Étienne Klein, physicist and philosopher of science, Professor of quantum and particle physics
See also
Notes and references
- ↑ dcs.st-and.ac.uk
- ↑ "List of centrale paris partners february 2014". Issuu. Retrieved 2016-06-02.
- ↑ em2c.ecp.fr
- ↑ erasme.ecp.fr
- ↑ lgi.ecp.fr
- ↑ lgpm.ecp.fr
- ↑ mas.ecp.fr
- ↑ mssmat.ecp.fr
- ↑ st.ecp.fr
- ↑ spms.ecp.fr
- ↑ scei-concours.fr
- ↑ MS programs at ECP
- ↑ "Norbert Rillieux". American Chemical Society. Retrieved 2016-03-18.
- ↑ (French)french ministry for research
- ↑ (French)profile on AXA Talents website
External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to École Centrale Paris. |
- English official website
- TIME association Network
- Alumni Association Website (in French)
- "Understanding the Grandes écoles"
- A detailed explanation on the admission process for the centralien curriculum on Stanford University's website