Sciences Po brings together all aspects of the five missions of a university establishment: initial and continuous education, research, documentation, publication and expertise.

Since its creation in 1945, Sciences Po has been a driving force in the progress of research in the political sciences, i.e. history, economics, sociology, law and politics. Sixty years after Sciences Po was re-founded by General de Gaulle, it is possible to look back over the range of innovations which have been brought about by our research. Reviewing these innovations will allow some to recall – and others to realize – the many years of effort and labour spent on behalf of our objective: the progress of knowledge.

Our research is characterized by a desire to share the knowledge it engenders. The contributions made by that research to public debate are well known. The work carried out at our research centres has provided and continues to provide keys for an understanding of change in a world which is increasingly difficult to predict making the need for reliable points of reference and rigorous methodology more pressing than ever.

Today, research at Sciences Po is characterized by a number of features which make it unique in the panorama of university research on the human and political sciences. Based on a multidisciplinary approach, it associates and combines skills and know-how from the different social sciences and the humanities. These academic synergies have led to the formation of a vibrant intellectual community, whose positive results can be seen in the developments in fundamental research and in the progress of expertise. This community is made up of 182 researchers and lecturer-researchers and 582 doctoral students currently working in our nine research centres.

These sixty years of effort and labour bear witness to the excellence of research carried out by individuals and centres devoted to their chosen fields of study, in turn generating a passionate and enthusiastic response to their work. These six decades reveal a dynamic research policy capable of reacting with great speed to current events and the new challenges of knowledge. They are the first sixty years of a great academic adventure which is a call to many more such adventures in the future.

Richard Descoings,
Administrator of the Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques,
Director of the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris