École centrale de Lyon


The École centrale de Lyon is a research university in greater Lyon, France. Founded in 1857 by François Barthélemy Arlès-Dufour in response to the increasing industrialization of France, it is one of the oldest graduate schools in France. The university is part of the Grandes Écoles, a prestigious group of French institutions dedicated to engineering, scientific research, and business education. The current 45-acre campus opened in 1967 and is located in the city of Ecully.
The École centrale de Lyon is traditionally known for its research and education in applied science and engineering. It excels in the research fields of acoustics, biosciences and nanotechnology, and is continuously ranked in the top five Grandes Écoles for the quality of its engineering graduate programs. The school is well-reputed for educating and training highly skilled engineers through many specialized graduate programs with a strong emphasis on laboratory instruction. Students graduate with a degree known as the diplôme d'ingénieur, which is an academic title protected by the French government and equivalent to a Master of Science, or with a Ph.D. upon completion of their doctoral studies.
The École centrale de Lyon has strong ties with top institutions in Europe including Imperial College London and Darmstadt University of Technology. The university is one of the founding members of the Centrale Graduate School network. It is also a founding member of University of Lyon's center for Research and Higher Education, which has over 120,000 students. Thus, it shares many of its Ph.D. programs with other institutions part of University of Lyon such as INSA Lyon, École Normale Supérieure de Lyon, and Claude Bernard University Lyon 1.

History and location

It was founded in 1857 on a private initiative by Désiré Girardon, who was its first president. The founding vision was to educate multidisciplinary engineers for the emerging industry. The institution was given to the French State Ministry of Education in 1947. Initially located downtown Lyon, it was transferred to Écully, its current location.

Growth

The centralien program is the main academic program offered by the École centrale de Lyon, as a Centrale Graduate School. It is quite different from typical university or college studies; and specific to the French system of grandes écoles. The engineering degree of École centrale de Lyon is a Master of Science degree.
The defining characteristic of the curriculum is that it is multidisciplinary, with studies focusing on all math and physics derived engineering specialties: mechanics, physics, materials, fluid mechanics, electrical engineering, applied mathematics, civil engineering, aeronautics, computer science, telecommunications and micro-nano-biotechnology.

Admission

The large majority of the students are admitted after two to three years of classes préparatoires, known as "mathematics superior" and "mathematics special", which are an undergraduate courses with almost exclusive emphasis on math and physics. These undergraduate students must then take a nationwide competitive entrance examination to enter a Centrale Graduate School, including Ecole centrale de Lyon. Ecole centrale de Lyon recruits among the top 6% of the students in classes preparatoires, who represent themselves 7% of higher education students, which makes it a selective and prestigious institution.
A few seats are available each year to select students from French universities after completion of three or four years of post high-school education.
A significant contingent of students also comes from leading international universities which belong to the TIME network.

Curriculum

Education at the ECL is multidisciplinary and typically lasts three to four years. During the first two years, students take mandatory classes in science ; in engineering and in social sciences. Students are then offered to sign up for different engineering specialties during their last year at the school. After completing these three years of education, they receive the degree of ingénieur de l'École centrale de Lyon, more commonly called ingénieur centralien.

National and international ties

The École centrale de Lyon belongs to the French Centrale Graduate School, together with École centrale Paris, École centrale de Lille, École centrale de Nantes, École centrale de Marseille and École centrale de Pékin.
Since 1857, the school has built important international ties. Students come from around the world to study for several years on the school campus. école centrale students may also obtain a double diploma at one of several partner schools. Furthermore, the école is one of the founding members of the TIME network.

France

The École centrale de Lyon is highly involved in research, and has the highest rate of PhD lecturers amidst the French grandes écoles.
ECL hosts six research centers related to the CNRS - French National Center for Scientific Research:
The overall objective of the research at Ampere is the management and rational use of energy in the systems in relation to their environment.
Ampère was born in 2007:
Contractualised with CNRS and three establishments in Lyon, Ampere has over 160 employees.
Tags:
The laboratory is organized into three scientific departments:
Camille Jordan Institute for mathematical sciences.

INL

The Institute of Nanotechnologies of Lyon was created on 1 January 2007, through the merger of three laboratories: the Laboratory of Electronics, Optoelectronics and Microsystems of Ecole centrale de Lyon, the Laboratory of Material Physics of INSA de Lyon and the Laboratory of Electronics Nanotechnologies and Sensors of Université Lyon 1.
The Lyon Institute of Nanotechnology is a fundamental and applied research laboratory in the field of micro- and nano-technology. Its mission is to conduct research towards the development of fully-fledged technologies for a broad range of application sectors.
Research is organised around four main topics :
Functional Materials, Electronics, Photonics & Photovoltaics and Biotechnology and Health.
The research programs draw on the resources of the Lyon-based Nanolyon technology platform.
A transversal research operation is specifically dedicated to the development of nanocharacterization tools and techniques.
The laboratory is situated on the campuses of Ecole centrale de Lyon, INSA Lyon, University of Lyon 1 and CPE. It comprises 120 permanent staff and approximately 95 non-permanent staff. The annual budget excluding salaries is about 3M€.

LMFA

The LMFA is a joint research unit attached to the CNRS, Ecole Centrale de Lyon, Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 and INSA Lyon. It is a member of the Institut Carnot Engineering at Lyon.
The activity of the laboratory is organized around four research groups: Centre for Acoustics, Fluid complex and Transfers Turbomachinery, Turbulence and Stability.
The research focuses on the physics and modeling of turbulence, hydrodynamic instabilities, two-phase flows, environmental fluid mechanics, aerodynamics internal thermal phenomena coupled aeroacoustics, acoustic propagation, methods of solving Navier–Stokes equations, the active or passive control of flow, microfluidics.
This research lead to numerous collaborations with industry players and institutional areas of transport, environment and energy. The goal is to provide developers with the tools of analysis and modeling to optimize their products or processes and reduce the energy and environmental impact.
In the transport sector, the LMFA developed an expertise on turbine on the reduction of noise and the new engine cars. Research in the environment focuses on mass transfer in the atmosphere, environmental hydraulics, noise and noise pollution, industrial hazards. The study covers the energy sector, particularly in terms of process optimization fluids, nuclear or oil phase flow, hydraulic turbines, new energy sources

LTDS

The Laboratory of Tribology and Systems Dynamics, was created in 1992 and in January 1995 became a Mixed Unit of Research CNRS-MESR which depends on the Scientific Department Engineering and Information Sciences and Technologies, depending on Section 9 of the Evaluation National Committee. LTDS is on two sites: centrale Lyon and the National School of Engineers at Saint-Etienne.
Its scientific field is broad and covers tribology, systems dynamics Solids Mechanics and transformation processes.
The LTDS's existence is due to the succession of the following events:
LIRIS was created in 2003 through the merging of several former laboratories involved in Communication and Information Technology research. LIRIS is affiliated to CNRS under the label UMR 5205.
The laboratory involves 280 people with 94 faculty members and researchers from INSA de Lyon, Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, Ecole Centrale de Lyon, Université Lumière Lyon 2 and CNRS.
The laboratory is organized in two departments:
The laboratory leads research on fundamental issues in these areas. It also investigates applications with an impact on society:
Culture and heritage
Ambient intelligence
Biology and health
Human learning
Digital entertainment

Notable alumni

In addition to the centralien engineering programme, the École centrale de Lyon offers a broad range of master's programs in science and engineering. These programmes are opened to applicants having completed their undergraduate studies at other institutions.
The ECL also has a PhD program for students with a master's level. More than 100 doctoral candidates work in five different laboratories in the school.