The Urban School

RESEARCH, THE PATH TO ACADEMIC RIGOUR

Through close collaboration with the Through close collaboration with the Cities are back in town research programme, the Urban School leverages research as an essential pedagogical tool within its taught programmes:

  • The programme's researchers are heavily involved in teaching at the School and their research influences programme content.
  • Students at the Urban School have access to many academic events organised by Cities are back in town: seminars, research workshops and international symposia. They also benefit from the intellectual stimulus of Sciences Po's research laboratories.
  • The research track offers students who so wish the possibility to prepare for doctoral study in sociology or political science.

Research-led teaching imparts knowledge and skills that are invaluable for graduates' professional development: rigour, the capacity for in-depth analysis and a critical perspective. In the young professionals who have graduated from the School, these qualities act as a powerful antidote to the arrogance of certainty.

AN IDEAS FACTORY TO REINVENT THE CITY

The Urban School is a centre for thought leadership on urban change and plays an important role in disseminating knowledge on urban subjects. As such, the theory and practice taught here is constantly questioned and renewed.

The School's students participate in this intellectual ferment through publications and productions from their own work in the field: reports on study trips, publication of articles, exhibitions, and presentations of group projects and capstones. PhD students from the research track of the Urban School Master's programmes regularly submit an article taken from their dissertation for publication.

Constantly updated, the material taught in our programmes progresses at the same pace as its continuously evolving urban subject. The School questions the city in order to reinvent and transform it through collective action.