国立路桥大学ENPC

国立路桥大学ENPC
The Corps of Engineers of Ponts et Chaussées (Bridges and Roads) was created in 1716. A decree issued by the Royal Council in 1747 entrusting Jean-Rodolphe Perronet with the task of setting up a training programme specific to state engineers is regarded as the act of creation of the school.
From its creation in 1747 to 1794, the school essentially bore the stamp of one man, its director, Jean-Rodolphe Perronet, engineer, administrator, and man of learning whose name is associated with the Encyclopedia of d'Alembert and Diderot.
During this period, the Ecole des Ponts numbered about fifty students: and not a single teacher throughout the XVIIIth Century !
In effect it was the most outstanding students who took their fellows in hand and who passed on to them their knowledge and skills in algebra, mechanics, hydraulics, and other domains, while practical experience in the field formed an important complement.
For it is important to note that what is now known as "Formation Alternée", an alternation between in-school and out-of-school training, was an important feature of the school from the very beginning: theoretical teaching was complemented by quite highly developed practical training; from May of each year, the students joined practising engineers throughout France who would entrust them with various tasks, while students submitted a report on their experience on their return. Nor was an international component in this training unknown: students were offered assignments of eight months in Italy, and later Holland.
Frequently too, men of high intellectual renown or of great social standing among Perronet's friends would take on students as assistants in their work. This practical aspect of the school's training can be discerned in the obligation upon its students to participate in the mapping of the Kingdom, and to work on a number of real projects( roads, bridges, ports, canals, architecture,...) at the school: in fact one can say that these practical projects took up most of the eleven-hour student working day at the school of the period.
Another original feature of "Perronet's Ponts" was its adoption of a strict system for monitoring progress and results to keep its students on their toes and up to a very high mark. It took into account assiduity, previous knowledge and experience, courses followed externally, and the annual experience in the field - as well as course followed and the annual competitive examinations at the school. It was a system that allowed the best to distinguish themeselves very rapidly, and the less able to struggle at a much slower pace: between 1774 and 1784, the length of studies could vary between four and twelve years.
The French Revolution was not without danger to the the very existence of the school: the Ecole des Ponts was finally able to continue its work, but only after numerous changes. Entry became open to students from the whole of France, recruitment was by competitive examination, tuition was free, and students received a fixed stipend.
From 1794, the year of the creation of the Ecole Polytechnique, the education of students at Ponts was to undergo change under the influence of a number of scholars, engineers, and political figures who were not happy with the working methods instituted by Jean-Rodolphe Perronet.
The school was to develop under the strong leadership of de Prony, Director for 41 years (1798 - 1893), and his successors. The first laboratory of the school, the oldest civil engineering laboratory, was created in 1831. The first issue of the "Annals of Ponts et Chaussées" was published the same year.
Throughout this period, the school included numerous scholars and engineers of renown among its graduates: mathematicians and specialists such as Cauchy , Navier and Barré de Saint-Venant; inventors such as P. Lebon and Vicat; physicists and chemists such as Gay-Lussac, Biot , Fresnel, H. Becquerel; engineers such as de Prony, Belgrand, Resal, Bienvenüe; and more surprisingly perhaps, economists such as Dupuit and Colson
The remarkable progress made in France during this period in transport and national development owes much to Ponts et Chaussées engineers: through their roads, railways, bridges, and canals, they created a great, much-envied communications network, and effected a modernisation in depth of their country.

A heritage of world repute: the historic collections
The Ecole des Ponts possesses one of the most beautiful collections of scientific and technical documents in Paris. The creation of this collection goes back to the very origins of the school and evolved with its changing pedagogical orientations. Drawings and manuscripts dating mainly from between 1750 and 1880 give a good idea of the work of the engineer at the dawn of the industrial era. While the quality of the drawings displays a still very "artistic" character of the engineer, several manuscripts reflect attempts to constitute a mathematical science of construction that was emerging at the same time. This collection of drawings and manuscripts is completed by a very rich set of scientific and technical works, and by a remarkable collection of over ten thousand photographs.
The school undertakes not only to preserve this collection, but to show it off to its best advantage, making it accessible to as wide a public as possible through exhibitions, the publication and sale of art books, and through the public presentation of numerous drawings and photographs.

The school at the beginning of the XXth century
By the end of the XIXth Century, the school had acquired its distinctive characteristics, and was not to undergo any further great upheavals. It continued to adapt to the constant progress in science and technology, and created new professorial chairs, in applied electricity, social economy, urban studies and town planning, and airports. The importance of the school research laboratory continued to grow, and famous figures among the graduates of this period include Caquot, Coyne, Freyssinet...
At the same time, the two world wars, the economic crisis of 1929, and the consequent periods of retrenchment and reconstruction, were not very favourable to a very rapid advance of the French "Grandes Ecoles" in general: that, and the school's on going drive to affirm its modernity, was to await the great turning point of the end of the war, and the new demands and challenges of the post-war period.

From the 1960s, an accelerating rate of change
The school made itself increasingly sensitive to the needs of the modern world. Student intake was increased significantly to respond to the growing need for engineers within the civil service and private sector alike.
The period of "les trentes glorieuses", the thirty years of post-war development, had need of the competence of engineers: technical progress, and considerable developments in science and technology linked to the building industry, to town and development planning and to environmental protection, necessitated a diversification of the teaching programme which was to change radically the shape of the school.
More students, more courses, more teachers: during these years the school undertook major reforms in student recruitment, programme structure, teaching methods, relations with research, and continuing education.
THE ECOLE DES PONTS IN FIGURES
2001-2002
TEACHING
Students registered:
672 the engineering curriculum
61 visiting students
151 "mastères" and MIB
137 research students
119 DEA
13 AUE
Total 1153 students (2001/02)
Diplomas awarded:
169 engineering diplomas
139 "mastères" and MIB diplomas
24 doctorates
40 DEA
33 DESS
Teaching staff :
300 teachers, including 60 professors
500 occasional lecturers
Organisation
8 departments for teaching and research
- international training department
- Civil Engineering and Construction
- Industrial Engineering
- Mechanical Engineering and Materials
- Applied Mathematics and Computer Science
- Mathematics and Science for the Engineer
- Networks, environment and Regions
- Human Science, Economics, Management, Finance
Students per college in the 2nd year
60 civil engineering and construction
26 industrial engineering
64 economics, management
41 applied mathematics and computer science
12 mechanical engineering and materials science
27 transport, planning, environment
Specialized training programmes
8 Mastères: technical master's degree courses
- Computationalal Mechanics (in association with the Ecole des Mines)
- Construction Engineering
- Environmental Engineering and Management (in association with the Ecole des Mines and ENGREF)
- Intelligent Transport Systems (in association with Supelec and INRETS)
- Public Management and Technical Expertise
- Management of Logistic Systems (in association with IML-EPFL and AFT-IFTIM)
- Regional Planning and Urban Expertise
- Urban Utilities (in association with the UTC and the CNFTP)
1 MBA the MIB - Masters in International Business
15 DEAs
- Analysis and Stochastic Systems
- Numerical Analysis
- Dynamics of Structures and Linkages
- Geomaterials
- Fundamental Computer Science and Applications
- Artificial Intelligence, Shape Recognition, and Applications
- Materials, Structures in their Environment
- Mathematical Modelling and Methods in Economics
- Soil Mechanics, Mechanics of Structures in their Environment
- Urban Change and Regional Governance
- Company and Production Management
- Probabilities and Applications
- Environmental Science and Technology
- Solids, Structures, and Mechanical Systems
- Transport
1 DESS
- Management and industrial strategy in construction, urban development, and real-estate heritage
Courses offered:
345 scientific and technical modules
100 language modules
60 modules in the export and international business training programme
OUT-OF-SCHOOL TRAINING
Engineering diploma :
6 to 16 months of out-of-school training are compulsory
Mastères :
5 months compulsory
DEA :
3 months compulsory at end of DEA
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
Foreign universities :
383 foreign students at the Ecole des Ponts
60 countries represented
35 students completing their third year abroad
DOCUMENTARY RESOURCES
Library
400 journals
80 000 books and prints, including 37000 from the historic collections
450 collections of historic journals
50 000 computerised references
Photographic and video library
30 000 photos
300 videos
200 CD-ROMs
RESEARCH
190 permanent researchers
97 doctoral students
39 research contracts
9 research laboratories and groups
CERMES soil mechanics
CERMMO mechanics of materials and works
LAMI materials analysis and identification
CGI geology
LMS solid mechanics
CERMICS mathematics, computer science, and scientific calculations
CEREVE water, the town, environment
LATTS technology, regions, society
CERAS socio-economic analysis
CONTINUING EDUCATION
230 sessions and one-day seminars
7 000 students
1 200 lecturers
1 international symposia
THE PRESSES DES PONTS
190 publications and scientific and technical software packages
16 000 works sold annually
20 new publications a year
AFFILIATED PROGRAMMES
Collège des Ingénieurs
58 engineers
Copernic
53 students
ADMINISTRATION
219 administrative staff
GRADUATE CAREERS
27% industry
16% construction
8% urban services and transport
15% engineering, consultancy
3% administration
17% banking, insurance, finance
13% computing
1% miscellaneous
37,000 euros average annual starting salary (approx. 245,000F)
http://www.enpc.fr