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The 'École Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Paris' (also known as 'École des Mines', 'École des Mines de Paris', 'ENSMP', 'Mines Paris' or simply 'les Mines') was created in 1783 by King Louis XVI in order to train ''intelligent directors of mines''. It is one of the French ''generalist'' and most prominent engineering schools Grandes Ecoles and a prestigious member of ParisTech (Paris Institute of Technology).
Despite its small size (fewer than 120 students accepted each year), it is a crucial part of the infrastructure of French industry.

Contents

History

Education

Diplomas

Admission for French and International students

Famous alumni

Research centres

Energy, material science

Applied math and computer science

Geology and environmental sciences

Economics and social sciences

See also

External links

Other schools of Mines in France

History

Created by a decree of the King's Counsel on March 19th 1783, the first school of mines was located in the Hôtel de la Monnaie, in Paris.
This school disappeared at the beginning of the French revolution but was re-established by a decree of the Committee of Public Safety in 1794, the 13th messidor year II. It moved to Savoie, after a decree of the consuls the 23rd pluviôse year X (1802)
After the Bourbon Restoration in 1814, the school moved to the Hôtel de Vendôme (all along the Jardin du Luxembourg in the 6th arrondissement of Paris). From the sixties it also has annexes in Fontainebleau, Évry and Sophia-Antipolis (Nice).

Education

Its former vocation to train mining engineers evolved in the course of time, because of technological progress and transformations of society. The École des Mines de Paris has become nowadays a "generalist" school, with a broad variety of disciplines. Its students are for the most part supposed to have management position in industrial companies and receive a good training not only in technical fields but also in economics and social sciences (e.g. a sociology of science course by Bruno Latour).

Diplomas

The Ecole des Mines provides different educational paths:

★ The education for 'Civil Engineers of Mines', ranked among the three best French Grande Ecole diplomas.

★ The education for the Corps of Mines, greatest technical corps of the French state. It is an honorific third cycle education, lasting for three years, and consisting mainly in long-term internships both in public and private economical institutions.

★ Doctoral and Master studies in various fields.

Admission for French and International students

★ For French nationals, admission to Civil Engineer of Mines is decided after concourse at the end of preparatory classes, a highly selective system.

★ Admission to the Corps of Mines is possible at the end of the École Polytechnique (top 10 ranked students each year), École Normale Supérieure and École des Mines de Paris (these two later, after specific concourse), or from the other great technical corps of the French state.

Famous alumni

Many famous mathematicians taught at the Ecole des Mines.
Two of its alumni have received a Nobel Prize :

★ Maurice Allais, Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel

★ Georges Charpak, Nobel Prize in physics

Research centres

Energy, material science

★ Centre d'energetique et procédés

★ Centre de Matériaux

★ Centre de mise en forme des matériaux

★ Laboratoire de mécanique des solides

Applied math and computer science

★ Morphologie mathématique

★ Robotique

★ Géostatistique

★ Recherche en informatique

★ Automatique et systèmes

★ Mathématiques appliquées

Geology and environmental sciences

★ Centre de géologie de l'Ingénieur

★ Centre d'informatique géologique

★ Centre de géotechnique et d'Exploitation du Sous-Sol

★ Centre de géophysique

Economics and social sciences

★ Economie Industrielle

★ Gestion scientifique

★ Sociologie de l'innovation

See also

Other top ranked Grandes Ecoles:

★ École Polytechnique

★ École Centrale

★ École Normale Supérieure
Alumni:

★ Old Mines Paris alumni union

External links

★ An excellent page with photos and historical overview

Other schools of Mines in France

★ École nationale supérieure des Mines de Nancy

★ École nationale supérieure des Mines de Saint-Étienne

★ École nationale supérieure des Mines d'Ales

★ École nationale supérieure des Mines de Douai

★ École des Mines de Nantes

★ École des Mines d'Albi-Carmaux