Research at École Polytechnique

If the State of the Union Address is an annual opportunity for the American President to showcase his performance and his vision of the future to Congress and the American people, the Midterm elections are an opportunity for the American population to express their views on how the country and the President are doing. This year,…

As many economists, political scientists, and policy makers reflect on growing economic inequalities dividing world populations today, a question often arises: how did we get here? Why is it that such significant wealth gaps grew over the years, both within countries and among different regions of the world? Many experts turn to history for answers,…

85 years ago, Louis Leprince Ringuet created the first research lab at École Polytechnique – a physics lab dedicated to research on the atom, cosmic rays and subatomic particles. Today, École Polytechnique boasts 23 research centers staffed by 1600 researchers in fields as diverse as mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, economics, and social sciences. Most recently,…

Winston Churchill famously said: “Russia is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.” Today, almost four years after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, many people, throughout the world, are baffled by the long-term goals of the Russian regime and by its internal workings. Historically, France provided a successful model for understanding Russia. Much of…

One of the mottos of the Enlightenment was “sapere aude”: Dare to know. With this motto, Enlightenment thinkers like Diderot, Voltaire, and Rousseau rejected fanaticism, conventional thinking, and, in many cases, the authority of the Church, submission to religious principles and belief in the afterlife. As they faced death, therefore, it seemed natural that these…

Over the last few decades, Sciences Po has significantly increased its footprint in research, becoming one of the world’s leading institutions in social science research. The Sciences Po ecosystem is structured around five disciplines: law, economics, history, political science, and sociology. Research priorities include: the analysis of social policy; economic transformations; social inequalities; environmental transition;…

Thirty years ago, the Beijing Declaration charted a path to achieve gender equality worldwide. Since then, some progress was achieved. Girls are surpassing boys in school completion, women are gaining seats in parliament, and nearly 100 countries have scrapped discriminatory laws. But poverty, hunger, conflict, climate change, and backlash against women rights are eroding progress…

Debates about climate change and the environment often focus, understandably, on risk evaluation, mitigation, and adaptation. Important research is dedicated to technical innovations like carbon capture or renewable energy; adaptive strategies to protect biodiversity; or financial solutions to bolster sustainable investment. This work is important, of course. But in order to get to the root…

In 2027, we will be celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Big Bang theory, first proposed by the Belgivan priest and astronomer Georges Lemaître. In the last 100 years, our knowledge and understanding of the universe has been radically transformed. Back in 1917, Einstein still believed in a static universe. Then came Edwin Hubble, who demonstrated,…

Politics, today, seems to be divided by ideology, as much as it is by identity. Our political leanings are determined, not only by our particular vision of the common good, but by who we are, where we come from, and the groups we belong to. One way to understand the degree to which identity shapes…