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Sciences Po and North America
North America is a key region in Sciences Po's international strategy. With now more than 80 partner institutions across the United States and Canada, Sciences Po’s North American network is unique in size, diversity and prestige.
These partnerships revolve around student mobility programmes, visiting professorships and collaboration in teaching and research. We have also established several dual degrees with American and Canadian partners, which help to consolidate our transatlantic ties.
Every year, around 1,300 students from the US and Canada enrol at Sciences Po, making it the most popular host university for North Americans studying in France.
Americans are the most represented nationality among international students at Sciences Po, and Canadians are the sixth most represented. These figures illustrate the strategic importance of the region.
Sciences Po's Partners in North America
Sciences Po has forged a huge number of partnerships with all types of institutions in the region, from liberal arts colleges to major public research universities, and including the Ivy League and HBCUs (Historically Black Colleges and Universities). These partnerships provide for student exchanges at undergraduate, Master's and PhD levels, allow us to jointly recruit students via our dual degree programmes, and facilitate academic collaboration through visiting research positions and professorships.
Our partnership with Columbia University plays a particularly crucial role in our North American strategy, and is formalised in the Alliance Program. Together, Columbia and Sciences Po have established numerous partnerships (concerning exchange programmes; dual Bachelor’s, Master’s and PhD degrees; doctoral exchanges and visiting professorships, joint courses etc.), which have often provided a model when developing similar programmes. Sciences Po also has strategic partnerships with a number of other partners in the region: UC Berkeley, Northwestern University and Georgetown University in the United States, and the University of British Columbia, the University of Toronto and McGill University in Canada.
Integrated programmes and Dual Degrees in North America
Sciences Po has developed several integrated programmes with institutions in the United State. Our combined JD/Master's programmes, offered in conjunction with six of the best law schools in the United States (Columbia, Duke, Georgetown and Northwestern Universities, and the Universities of Pennsylvania and Virginia), give the most talented graduate students from these institutions an opportunity to spend two years studying at our Law School. Meanwhile, our integrated BA/MA programmes with Barnard College and Johns Hopkins University also invite undergraduates at these institutions to come and pursue a Master’s degree at Sciences Po.
A leader in the development of dual degree programmes with North American institutions, Sciences Po has an exceptional network of programme partners. It now offers three dual Bachelor's degrees with Columbia University and UC Berkeley in the US and the University of British Columbia in Canada, together with seven dual Master's degrees and two joint PhD programmes.
Academic Programmes relating to North America
The North American Minor of the Sciences Bachelor’s degree, taught on the Reims Campus, invites students to explore political and social shifts within North America. The minor takes a comparative approach and incorporates study of political institutions, history, law, economics, sociology and the humanities.
The Sciences Po School of International Affairs (PSIA) gives students across all Master’s programmes a choice of regional concentrations, one of which focuses on the Americas.
Research
- Visiting Professorships: Sciences Po has set up several long-term faculty exchange programmes with Harvard, Northwestern and Princeton Universities. There is also an annual exchange programme with Columbia University, which is coordinated by the Alliance Program.
- PhD Funding programme with American universities: an exchange programme with seven of Sciences Po’s American partner universities, four of which are in the Ivy League, provides funding for international doctoral mobility.
Strategic Projects
The Alliance Program is a joint venture between Columbia University, Sciences Po, École Polytechnique and Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. The only joint endowment fund housed within an American university, the programme supports co-run initiatives in a vast and complementary range of disciplines, generating a multilateral partnership that is broader in scope and richer in opportunities than any bilateral agreement.
The Alliance Program facilitates numerous student exchanges, visiting research posts and visiting professorships, helping to strengthen ties between France and America, and to facilitate links between Columbia and Sciences Po.
Funded by a generous donation from the McCourt Foundation, and co-run with Georgetown and Stanford Universities, the McCourt Institute specialises in issues of digital governance. It is housed at the centre of Sciences Po’s new 1 St-Thomas Campus.
The mission of the US-based Sciences Po American Foundation is to centralise the university’s outreach work in the country by overseeing promotional initiatives and fundraising.
Key figures
96
North American university partnerships, of which 80 are in the US
12
dual degree or joint programme partners
1,300
North American students at Sciences Po every year
450
Sciences Po students studying abroad
150
on an internship in North America every year
12%
of recent Sciences Po graduates employed abroad work in the US or Canada
