Science + Sciences Po: An Unprecedented Dual Degree

At the start of the 2020-2021 academic year, Sciences Po will be offering a new interdisciplinary dual bachelor’s degree, the “BASc”, or the Bachelor of Arts and Sciences, combining the study of hard science with the social sciences and humanities. In partnership with multiple French universities, this dual degree is the first of its kind in France. Taught over four years, the aim of these programmes is to build the tools to analyse and act upon global challenges of the 21st century. Two of the programmes within the BASc focus particularly on the ecological transition.

An All-New Degree

>>> Read the press release of 3 December 2019 (in French)

Adding to a long list of pre-existing dual degree programmes, this Bachelor of Arts and Sciences offers an unprecedented level of interdisciplinarity: students will simultaneously follow the curriculum of the Bachelor’s degree at Sciences Po, the curriculum in the sciences at the partner university, as well as original courses which link the two domains, conceived and delivered jointly by the two institutions.
This new dual degree will be launched at the beginning of September 2020 on two campuses with two different themes:

“Policies of the Earth”: Offered on the Paris campus, this dual degree with the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris (IPGP), links geosciences and social sciences;
“Environment, Society and Sustainability”: Offered on the Reims campus, this dual degree with the University of Reims Champagne-Ardenne, links life sciences and social sciences.

Two other dual degrees based on the same model in partnership with the University of Paris will commence in 2021:

“Algorithms and Decisions”: A dual degree in mathematics & computer science and the social sciences to explore the challenges of big data on our lifestyles;
“Policies of Life and Identities”: A dual degree in life sciences and the social sciences focussing on ethics pertaining to the manipulation of living beings.

For Frédéric Mion, President of Sciences Po, “the idea is not only to juxtapose these disciplines but to effectively educate future leaders with hybrid profiles, capable of bringing a new perspective on the crucial challenges of our era, in which the social sciences and humanities and the hard or natural sciences provide insights that are impossible to dissociate from each other."

A Challenging Curriculum Over 4 Years

These new dual bachelor degrees will be taught over a four-year period: two years in France spent between the two partner institutions, a third year abroad, and a final year dedicated to interdisciplinary courses and deepening scientific learning.

This Bachelor of Arts and Sciences degree is destined towards high school graduates with equally excellent records in the hard scientific disciplines as well as the soft ones. 50 students will be admitted to the first cohort at the start of the 2020-21 academic year, after which 100 students per year will be admitted (from September 2021). Candidates will follow the classic admissions procedure to the Undergraduate College, with an interview before a jury composed of representatives from each university.

At the end of these four years of studies, students will obtain the Bachelor of Arts and Sciences delivered by Sciences Po as well as a bachelor’s degree from the partner university. Graduates will then be able to choose to pursue their master’s degree at Sciences Po or amongst the master’s degrees in the hard sciences at the partner university.

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