Discover Sciences Po’s 150 Years of History Using the Digital Timeline

Sciences Po Paris (the Paris Institute of Political Studies or l’Institut d'études politiques de Paris) has a special place in IPSA’s history. Until 1967, IPSA was hosted in Paris on the premises of the Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques (FNSP), the private foundation that regulates the strategic orientations and manages the administrative and financial aspects of Sciences Po. Moreover, many scholars from the FNSP were instrumental in the early years of IPSA, including some of IPSA’s first Secretaries-General François Goguel (1949-1950), Jean Meynaud (1950-1955) and Serge Hurtig (1960-1967), and Jacques Chapsal who served as IPSA President from 1958 to 1961. In 2019, 70 years after its foundation, IPSA also celebrated its anniversary at its founding location in Paris in collaboration with the French Political Science Association, which was also founded in 1949.

Sciences Po, the pioneering public research university, celebrated its 150th anniversary by inaugurating a new campus in January 2022, a project that was possible thanks to an ambitious fundraising campaign launched in 2018. Furthermore, as part of the celebration, various academic and cultural events were organized to gather past, present and future political scientists. In an attempt to offer the public an unprecedented look into the institution’s past, a book entitled le roman vrai was published.

Sciences Po also created a digital timeline charting “150 Years of History” on its website to mark the anniversary. The timeline tells the story of Sciences Po since its founding in 1872 and offers rich content about the evolution of political science in France and the relationship between IPSA and the French Political Science Association. The timeline also has sections about IPSA’s Secretaries-General, including Prof. Serge Hurtig, who played a crucial role in the development of IPSA from 1960 to his passing in 2019.
 
Sciences Po

The École Libre des Sciences Politiques (ELSP) was founded in 1872 by Émile Boutmy in the wake of the political and moral crisis in France following the 1870 Franco-Prussian War. It was intended to educate and push the new elite while generating modern knowledge for a new and resilient France, the Third Republic.

In 1945, Sciences Po was partially nationalized and divided into the Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques (FNSP) and the Institut d’Etudes Politiques (IEP). Sciences Po nevertheless retained its independence. This autonomy, repeatedly confirmed by national authorities, has made Sciences Po a laboratory of innovative institutional, educational and scientific ideas. Today, Sciences Po is a research university in the social sciences with 14,000 students, internationally recognized for the quality of its scientific output.