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An école normale supérieure (French pronunciation: [ekɔl nɔʁmal sypeʁjœʁ]) or ENS is a type of publicly funded higher education in France. A portion of the student body who are French civil servants are called Normaliens.

The history of écoles normales supérieures goes back to 30 October 1794 (9 brumaire an III) when École normale de l'an III was established during the French Revolution.^[1] The school was subsequently reestablished as pensionnat normal from 1808 to 1822, before being recreated in 1826 and taking the name of École normale in 1830. When institutes for primary teachers training called écoles normales were created in 1845, the word supérieure (meaning upper) was added to form the current name.

The Savary law of 1984 restructured higher education in France and classified écoles normales supérieures within Établissement public à caractère scientifique, culturel et professionnel.^[2] Since January 2010, there are three ENS: the École Normale Supérieure located in Paris, the École Normale Supérieure de Lyon located in Lyon and the École Normale Supérieure de Cachan in Cachan near Paris.

History[link]

Key decrees and laws on the upper part of the entrance of École Normale Supérieure, 45 rue d'Ulm

After the suppression of the Society of Jesus in France in 1762, a debate arose on how to replace their role in education. The idea of an école normale, a place to train teachers for the secondary schools, is already mentioned in a report on education made in 1768 by Rolland, president of the Parliament of Paris.^[3]

The first école normale was established by the National Convention in a decree dated October 30, 1794.^[1] Educated people from all parts of France were to be selected to attend the school an to subsequently return to found an école normale in their department for the education of primary schools teachers. The école normale de l'an III had renown teachers such as Laplace, Lagrange, and Berthollet but was actually in function during only four months, from 20 January 1795 to 19 May 1795 or in the then in use French Republican Calendar from 1er pluviose of year III until 30 floréal of year III.

In the decree of Napoleon of March 17, 1808, the institution was re-established as pensionnat normal.^[1] The candidates most promising for administration and education roles were admitted through a competitive examination.^[4] The students could attend courses at Collège de France, Muséum d'histoire naturelle or École polytechnique.^[4] At école normale, they received support from tutors for revising, laboratory experiments and teaching the art of teaching.^[4]

In 1880, Camille Sée established secondary education for girls. Subsequently, a law dated 29 July 1881 founded the École normale supérieure de jeunes filles located in Sèvres.

Jules Ferry got a law passed on 9 August 1879 in order to force each department to establish and fund an institution to train primary school teachers for each gender (école normale de garçons and école normale de filles).^[5] In order to train the teaching body of these schools, so-called écoles normales supérieures de l’enseignement primaire were needed. A decree dated 13 July 1880 set up the one for young women in Fontenay-aux-Roses, and later in March 1882 the male equivalent opened in Saint-Cloud.^[5]

Starting in 1891, a section for teacher training named sections normales was established in the École des Arts et métiers of Châlons-sur-Marne (decree of 11 June 1891) and in the École des Hautes Études Commerciales de Paris (decree of 21 July 1894). A decree published on 15 June 1899 organized sections normales for women. These sections normales were grouped together in 1912 into a single school which was named "École normale supérieure de l'enseignement technique" in 1934.

Academic profile[link]

Their competitive entrance exams are extremely selective. They recruit mainly from scientific and humanities Prépas (Taupe / BCPST and Khâgne), even though a small number of their students (less than 10 each year) are recruited separately on the basis of highly selective exams. The students from France and other European Union countries are considered civil servants in training, and as such paid a monthly salary, in exchange for an agreement to serve France for 10 years, including those of their studies.

The École Normale Supérieure located in Paris is nicknamed "Ulm" from its address rue d'Ulm (Ulm Street). It teaches sciences and humanities. École Normale Supérieure de Lyon in Lyon also teaches sciences and humanities. École Normale Supérieure de Cachan located in Cachan, a suburb of Paris teaches theoretical and applied sciences, engineering, social sciences, economics and management and foreign languages.

Until recently and unlike most of the other grandes écoles, the écoles normales supérieures did not award any specific diplomas (students who had completed the curriculum they had agreed to with the office of the Dean upon arrival were simply entitled to be known as "ENS Alumni" or "Normaliens"), but they keep encouraging their students to obtain university diplomas in partner institutions whilst providing extra classes and support. Many ENS students obtain more than one university diploma.

References[link]

École normale supérieure
Established	1794
Type	EPCSCP
Director	Monique Canto-Sperber
Students	2700 [1]
Undergraduates	250 [1]
Postgraduates	Masters, agrégation, Ph.D
Location	Paris, France
Colours	Yellow, Purple
Nickname	ENS Ulm, Normale Sup'
Affiliations	Paris Sciences et Lettres - Quartier latin, Atomium Culture
Website	ens.fr

The École normale supérieure (French pronunciation: [ekɔl nɔʁmal sypeʁjœʁ]; also known as Normale sup’, Normale, and ENS) is one of the most prestigious French grandes écoles (higher education establishments outside the mainstream framework of the public universities system). The ENS was initially conceived during the French Revolution^[2], and it was intended to provide the Republic with a new body of teachers, trained in the critical spirit and secular values of the Enlightenment. It has since developed into an elite institution which has become a platform for many of France's brightest young people to pursue high-level careers in government and academia.

Its alumni have provided France with scores of philosophers, writers, scientists, statesmen and even churchmen. Among them are 12 Nobel Prize laureates, 10 Fields Medalists, 1 Gauss Prize laureate, and 2 recipients of the John Bates Clark Medal in Economics.

For a long time, women were taught at a separate ENS. The two were merged, after some heated debate, into a single entity, with its main campus at the historic site at the rue d'Ulm in Paris.

The ENS system is different from that of most higher education systems outside France, although it has been copied since Napoleonic times, for instance in Italy. Nevertheless, the university was ranked 33rd in the 2011 QS World University Rankings.^[3] THE-QS World University Rankings (from 2010 two separate rankings have been produced by the Times Higher Education World University Rankings and the QS World University Rankings) ranked it the best higher-education institution in Continental Europe in 2006 and 2007.^[4][5]

The historic Paris ENS campus is located around the rue d'Ulm, the main building being at 45 rue d'Ulm) in the 5th arrondissement of Paris. The ENS-Ulm has annex campuses on Boulevard Jourdan (previously, the women's college) (48°49′21″N 2°19′53″E / 48.822439°N 2.331312°E / 48.822439; 2.331312, elsewhere in Paris), and in Montrouge (a suburb; 48°49′15″N 2°18′55″E / 48.820742°N 2.315180°E / 48.820742; 2.315180), as well as a biology annex in the countryside at Foljuif.

2 other écoles normales supérieures were established in the 19th century: the École Normale Supérieure de Lyon (sciences & humanities); and the École Normale Supérieure de Cachan (pure and applied sciences, sociology, economics and management, English language) in Cachan. All 3 together form the informal ENS-group.

The École Normale Supérieure is a member of Paris Sciences et Lettres - Quartier latin, a union of five higher education institutions, all located in Paris, which aims at achieving cooperations and synergies in the academic field.

The École Normale Supérieure cooperates in Atomium Culture, the first Permanent Platform for European Excellence that brings together some of Europe's leading universities, newspapers and businesses.

Overview[link]

The quadrangle at the main ENS building on rue d'Ulm is known as the Cour aux Ernests – the Ernests being the goldfish in the pond.

Originally founded to train high school teachers through the agrégation, it is now an institution training researchers, professors, high-level civil servants, as well as business and political leaders. It focuses on the association of training and research, with an emphasis on freedom of curriculum.

Its alumni include ten laureates of the Fields Medal (all French holders of the Fields medal were educated at the École Normale Supérieure), as well as several Nobel Prize winners in both science and literature.

Like many other grandes écoles, the ENS mostly enrols its students two or three years after high school. The majority of them come from prépas (preparatory classes, see grandes écoles) and have to pass France's most selective competitive exams. Studies at ENS last four years. Many students devote the third year to the agrégation, which allows them to teach in high schools or universities. ENS-Ulm annually enrolls about 100 students in science and the same number in the humanities.

The normaliens, as the students of the ENS are known, are expected to maintain a level of excellence in the various disciplines in which they are trained. Normaliens from France and other European Union countries are considered civil servants in training. As such, they are paid a monthly salary (about 1300€), in exchange for an agreement to serve France for 10 years, including their studies. Although it is seldom applied in practice, this exclusivity clause is redeemable (often by the hiring firm).

Apart from the normaliens, ENS also welcomes selected foreign students ("international selection"), as well as selected students from neighboring universities, to follow the same curriculum but without a stipend. It also participates in various graduate programs and has extensive research laboratories.

The fictitious mathematician Nicolas Bourbaki's "association of collaborators" is based at ENS.

Influence abroad[link]

The Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa was founded in 1810 as a branch of the École normale supérieure and later gained independence.

The ENS group has opened a branch at the ECNU in Shanghai.

Free online content[link]

Some lectures are in free access on the "Transfer of knowledge" site of the ENS.

About sixty books are in free access on the "Éditions Rue d'Ulm" site, all in French.

Alumni and faculty[link]

See also[link]

• École Normale Supérieure de Cachan
• École Normale Supérieure de Lyon
• Alumni of the École Normale Supérieure
• École Normale Supérieure faculty
• École Polytechnique
• École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris
• École Centrale Paris
• Paris Universitas
• Atomium Culture
• École Normale de Musique de Paris

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: École Normale Supérieure

• ENS Paris
• ENS Lettres et Sciences Humaines

Coordinates: 48°50′31″N 2°20′41″E / 48.841837°N 2.344754°E / 48.841837; 2.344754

• ENS Cachan
• A. J. Ladd, École Normale Supérieure: An Historical Sketch (Grand Forks, North Dakota : Herald Pub. Co., 1897)

Cédric Villani
Born	(1973-10-05) 5 October 1973 (age 38) Brive-la-Gaillarde, France
Residence	Paris, France
Nationality	French
Fields	Mathematics
Institutions	Institut Camille Jordan Institut Henri Poincaré Claude Bernard University Lyon 1
Alma mater	École Normale Supérieure
Doctoral advisor	Pierre-Louis Lions
Known for	Boltzmann equation Kinetic theory Transportation theory
Notable awards	Herbrand Prize (2007) EMS Prize (2008) Fermat Prize (2009) Henri Poincaré Prize (2009) Fields Medal (2010)
Website
math.univ-lyon1.fr/~villani/

Cédric Villani (born 5 October 1973) is a French mathematician working primarily on partial differential equations and mathematical physics. He was awarded the Fields Medal in 2010.

Biography[link]

After attending the Lycée Louis-le-Grand, Villani was admitted at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris and studied there from 1992 to 1996. He was later appointed an assistant professor in the same school. He received his doctorate at Paris Dauphine University in 1998, under the supervision of Pierre-Louis Lions, and became professor at the École Normale Supérieure de Lyon in 2000. He is now professor at Lyon University. He has been the director of Institut Henri Poincaré in Paris since 2009.^[1][2]

Work[link]

Villani has worked on the theory of partial differential equations involved in statistical mechanics, specifically the Boltzmann equation, where, with Laurent Desvillettes, he was the first to prove how fast convergence occurred for initial values not near equilibrium.^[2] He has also written with Giuseppe Toscani on this subject. With Clément Mouhot, he has also worked on nonlinear Landau damping.^[3] He has worked on the theory of optimal transport and its applications to differential geometry, and with John Lott has defined a notion of bounded Ricci curvature for general measured length spaces.^[4] He received the Fields Medal for his work on Landau damping and the Boltzmann equation.^[2]

Awards[link]

• Jacques Herbrand Prize (French Academy of Sciences) (2007)
• Prize of the European Mathematical Society (2008)
• Fermat Prize (2009)
• Henri Poincaré Prize (2009)
• Fields Medal (2010)^[2]

Selected writings[link]

• Limites hydrodynamiques de l'équation de Boltzmann, Séminaire Bourbaki, June 2001; Astérisque vol. 282, 2002.
• A Review of Mathematical Topics in Collisional Kinetic Theory, in Handbook of Mathematical Fluid Dynamics, edited by S. Friedlander and D. Serre, vol. 1, Elsevier, 2002, ISBN 978-0-444-50330-5. doi:10.1016/S1874-5792(02)80004-0.
• Topics in Optimal Transportation, volume 58 of Graduate studies in mathematics, American Mathematical Society, 2003, ISBN 978-0-8218-3312-4.
• Optimal transportation, dissipative PDE’s and functional inequalities, pp. 53–89 in Optimal Transportation and Applications, edited by L. A. Caffarelli and S. Salsa, volume 1813 of Lecture Notes in Mathematics, Springer, 2003, ISBN 978-3-540-40192-6.
• Cercignani's conjecture is sometimes true and always almost true, Communications in Mathematical Physics, vol. 234, #3 (March 2003), pp. 455–490, doi:10.1007/s00220-002-0777-1.
• On the trend to global equilibrium for spatially inhomogeneous kinetic systems: the Boltzmann equation (with Laurent Desvillettes), Inventiones Mathematicae, vol. 159, #2 (2005), pp. 245–316, doi:10.1007/s00222-004-0389-9.
• Mathematics of Granular Materials, Journal of Statistical Physics, vol. 124, #2-4 (July/August 2006), pp. 781–822, doi:10.1007/s10955-006-9038-6.
• Optimal transport, old and new, volume 338 of Grundlehren der mathematischen Wissenschaften, Springer, 2009, ISBN 978-3-540-71049-3.
• Ricci curvature for metric-measure spaces via optimal transport (with John Lott), Annals of Mathematics vol. 169, #3 (2009), pp. 903–991.
• Hypocoercivity, volume 202, #950 of Memoirs of the American Mathematical Society, 2009, ISBN 978-0-8218-4498-4.
• Clément Mouhot; Cédric Villani (2009). "On Landau damping". arXiv:0904.2760 [math.AP]. 

References[link]

External links[link]

• Cédric Villani's home page
• Cédric Villani at the Mathematics Genealogy Project