An Introduction/
The Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)
EPFL is the research home of the beginning of the modern computer mouse, of the ambitious Blue Brain Project, and of innovative ideas towards sustainable development. Offering tuition at all levels from undergraduate to PhD, it is one of the world’s fastest growing campuses. It is currently ranked alongside Cambridge as the top university in Europe in the category of engineering, technology and computer sciences according to the Shanghai Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU).
Situated on a single campus overlooking the shores of Lake Geneva at Lausanne, Switzerland, with extraordinary views of the Alps, EPFL accommodates 11,000 people. These include 7,000 students as well as professors, over 4,000 researchers and other faculty members, plus administrative staff and a number of entrepreneurs running small start-up science and technology businesses located on the campus.
The vision of EPFL President Patrick Aebischer “is to build a university where traditional boundaries between faculties are replaced by a spirit of collaboration; a campus designed in such a way that mathematicians and engineers may meet spontaneously with neuroscientists and microtechnicians to envision new technologies that improve everyday life; a campus that is open and welcoming to the public.”
With 50 per cent of its faculty recruited internationally and 60 per cent of its PhD students coming from abroad, EPFL is one of the most international universities in the world. Its campus is wholly bilingual (French and English) at Masters level, and students and researchers are strongly encouraged to move between institutions and between countries. EPFL is, with ETHZ (Eldgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich), one of only two Swiss university institutions supported directly by the Swiss federal government.