ENSTA Paris

Originally, the school was the brainchild of Henri-Louis Duhamel du Monceau, inspector general of the Navy. He had identified the need to give the Navy's master carpenters a theoretical education, particularly in mathematics and physics, which were making quick progress, so that they would have a clearer understanding of their trade.

Duhamel du Monceau founded the first school in his home in Paris on the Isle Saint Louis in 1741. This date is recognised as the origin of the institution. In 1748 it was moved to the royal library on rue Richelieu, and in 1753 to the Louvre Palace, immediately adjacent to the Académie des Sciences. It was closed in 1759 during the Seven Years' War. In 1765, he managed to persuade the duc de Choiseul to reopen it as part of a sweeping overhaul of the navy. Duhamel du Monceau continued to run the school for the rest of his life.

The School of Student Engineer Constructors, as it was known, was closed in 1793 during the French Revolution. It reopened in 1795 as an application school for the Ecole Polytechnique. Later on, it became known as Ecole nationale supérieure du Génie maritime (National Higher College of Maritime Engineering).

In 1970, the Délégation générale pour l'Armement (Arms administration of the Ministry of Defence) merged the school with three of its other establishments:

- the École nationale supérieure des Poudres (Powders and explosives institute)

- the École nationale supérieure de l'Armement (Arms engineering institute)

- the École des Ingénieurs hydrographes de la Marine (Hydrographic institute).

This formed the École nationale supérieure de Techniques avancées (ENSTA), the role of which is to train engineers in the naval, mechanical, nuclear, chemical, electronic and related fields. The scientific skills of each of the founding institutes survives in the broad range of research disciplines covered at ENSTA, as well as in the more general nature of its teaching and the variety of specialities offered to the students.

Today, ENSTA's legal status is that of a "public administrative establishment", placed under the supervision of the Ministry of Defence. It is headed by a general officer of the Corps of Ordnance Ingineers (DGA). Some former graduates of École polytechnique attend ENSTA before joining the military Corps of Ordnance Engineers, which staffs the DGA.

National ranking (ranked as ENSTA Paris for its Master of Sciences in Engineering)

International ranking (ranked as Institut Polytechnique de Paris)

ENSTA Paris is a Grande École, a French institution of higher education that is separate from, but parallel and connected to the main framework of the French public university system. Similar to the Ivy League in the United States, Oxbridge in the UK, and C9 League in China, Grandes Écoles are elite academic institutions that admit students through an extremely competitive process.[11][12][13] Grandes Écoles typically they have much smaller class sizes and student bodies than public universities in France, and many of their programs are taught in English. While most Grandes Écoles are more expensive than French universities, ENSTA Paris charges the same tuition fees: €243 annually for the master's degree in 2021/2022[14] International internships, study abroad opportunities, and close ties with government and the corporate world are a hallmark of the Grandes Écoles.[15][16] Degrees from ENSTA Paris are accredited by the Conférence des Grandes Écoles[17] and awarded by the Ministry of National Education (France) (French: Le Ministère de L'éducation Nationale).[18] Alums go on to occupy elite positions within government, administration, and corporate firms in France.[19][20]

• ENSTA Paris

48.834246°N 2.283331°E / 48.834246; 2.283331