At a glance: The Sciences Po Urban School programmes

Discover the Urban School

Solid social sciences foundations, combined with a strong specialization and a highly collaborative field experience: our aim at the Urban School is to train the new professionals who will design, manage, strategize, innovate and advocate for the city of the future. To build a just and sustainable urban future. 

Our graduates have access to a wide range of careers in the public, private, or nonprofit sectors, as project managers, urban designers, consultants, or policy makers, at the local, national, or global levels.

> Learn more about our project

The Urban School: an ecosystem with 400 students from all over the world, 120 teachers, 60 tutors, 250 partners and more than 4,000 alumni. A beautiful campus in Paris downtown, nearby the Louvre, where committed students, researchers and professionals work together in a vibrant urban environment.

Field experience and strong professionalization

Our master programmes at the Urban School make real-world practical experience a priority: through group projects, learning expeditions, collective inquiries, professional workshops and case studies, students learn how to work in a highly collaborative environment, as a reflection of their future professional life.
Moreover, the Urban School's solid research focus ensures a constant dialogue between theory and practice. Students are taught to adopt a critical perspective on all issues. 

Our group project : a collective, authentic experience on a regional or urban issue (health, environment, datas, housing, migrations, citizens participation, etc.)

Learning expedition : a field experience to identify and analyse the economic, political, social, environmental, and cultural issues in a city, meet local stakeholders and study their interactions.

A comparative approach

All courses at the Urban School take a comparative approach. This gives students an analytical framework and a set of useful benchmarks for use in a rapidly changing environment. It also instils in them the habit of thinking on a global scale. Study trips play a key role in this approach.

Our programmes use the social sciences (political science, sociology and economics, supplemented by history, geography and law) to provide an understanding of urban models from an interdisciplinary perspective.

For an international experience, students can also spend their semester "outside the walls" at one of our 7 partner universities as part of an exchange program.

The Master's Programmes

The Urban School’s Master’s programmes prepare students and professionals for urban governance in all its forms.

Master in Regional and Urban Strategy

The Master in Regional and Urban Strategy prepares students for strategic and operational positions in urban and regional policy and planning. Graduates go on become managers working across geographical scales with diverse stakeholders (both public and private) and a wide range of technical tools.

> Learn more about the Master in Regional and Urban Strategy.

Master Governing the Large Metropolis

The programme aims to produces young professionals who will take charge of public policy design and implementation in the governance of large cities in the future. Graduates learn to deal with the most challenging issues of urbanisation: water, electricity, mobility infrastructures, health and social services, etc.

> Learn more about the Master Governing the Large Metropolis.

Master Governing Ecological Transitions in Cities

The programme prepares students to manage current and future transitions through advanced training in urban environmental challenges and urban governance in cities.

> Learn more about the Master Governing Ecological Transitions in Cities.

Master in Urban Planning

The programme trains professionals in urban project management, from design to implementation: urban and regional planners, land-use planners, real estate developers and managers, local government administrators.

> Learn more about the Master in Urban Planning.

Dual degrees

The Urban School offers four dual Master's programmes in partnership with world-renowned universities.

Urban Policy, LSE (UK)

A programme run jointly by Sciences Po and the London School of Economics (LSE, UK). Students study regional and urban governance from both a European and an international perspective.

> Learn more about the dual degrees Urban Policy.

Global and Comparative Urban Planning and Governance, UCLA (USA)

This dual degree draws on political economy, the political sociology of urban policies and their implementation, emphasizing political protest and participation.

> Learn more about the dual degrees Global and Comparative Urban Planning and Governance.

Management of International and Public Affairs, Bocconi (Italy)

Combines the study of economics and management with the social sciences, while also offering courses with a strong professional focus.

> Learn more about the dual degrees Management of International and Public Affairs.

Global Urban Development with Tata Institute of Social Sciences (Inde)

To acquire skills in global comparative urbanism and urban governance with training in India and Europe.

> Learn more about the dual degree Global Urban Development
 

Where do our alumni work?

Our graduates can easily move from private sector to public or non-profit sectors during their professional careers. They work as project managers, urban designers, consultants and policy makers.

Some examples of job opportunities:

> Discover the diversity of career paths.