École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne


EPFL is a public research university in Lausanne, Switzerland. Founded in 1969, the university primarily teaches and conducts research in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields.
Like its sister institution ETH Zurich, EPFL is part of the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology Domain, a consortium of universities and research institutes under the Swiss Federal Department of Economic Affairs, Education and Research. As of 2024, EPFL enrolled 14,012 students from over 130 countries.
Students, faculty, and researchers affiliated with EPFL include a Nobel laureate, two Fields Medalists, two Pritzker Prize winners, and one Turing Award recipient. EPFL has an urban campus that extends alongside Lake Geneva, and includes the EPFL Innovation Park as well as university research centers and affiliated laboratories.

History

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. 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 contrast, all other universities in Switzerland are controlled by their respective cantonal governments. Following the nomination of Patrick Aebischer as president in 2000, EPFL has started to develop into the field of life sciences. It absorbed the Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research in 2008.
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.
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.
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 for the Bachelor of Science degree and four additional semesters 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.
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.

Rankings

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.
EPFL typically scores high on faculty to student ratio, international outlook and scientific impact. The CWTS Leiden Ranking 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, 2016 and 2017, and 2nd in the world in 2018 and 2019.
Times Higher Education also ranked EPFL as the most international university in the world two years in a row 2014 and 2015.

Campus

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, completed in 1998, and the architecture building, 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.
Together with the University of Lausanne, EPFL forms a vast campus complex at the shores of Lake Geneva with about 20,000 students combined.
The campus is served by the Lausanne Metro Line 1 and is equipped with an electric bicycle sharing system. 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.
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.
Almost all of the structures are on its main campus. However, it also has branches in Neuchâtel, in Sion, in Geneva and in Fribourg. There was also a research centre in Ras al-Khaimah, EPFL Middle East, between 2009 and 2022.

Buildings

The campus consists of about 65 buildings on. 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.
  • Modern: new buildings with Microengineering, Communications and Architecture institutes, the School of Life Sciences and the College of Management.
  • The Rolex Learning Center, a new library.
  • 2014: The SwissTech Convention Center and the "Quartier Nord".
  • The EPFL-Pavilions building, 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.
  • Museums: Musée Bolo, Archizoom.
The EPFL and the University of Lausanne share an active sports centre on the shores of Lake Geneva, away from EPFL, about five minutes by car.