The École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) is a public research university located in Lausanne, Switzerland. It specializes in natural sciences and engineering. It is one of the two Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology, with three main missions: education, research and innovation.
EPFL is part of the Domain of the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology (ETH Domain), which is directly dependent on the Federal Department of Economic Affairs, Education and Research. In addition to EPFL, ETH Domain also includes Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich as well as several research institutes: Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI), Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (Empa), Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (Eawag), and Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL).
In connection with research and teaching activities, EPFL operates a nuclear reactor CROCUS, a Tokamak Fusion reactor, a Blue Gene/Q Supercomputer and P3 bio-hazard facilities.
The QS World University Rankings ranks EPFL 14th in the world across all fields in their 2020/2021 ranking, whilst Times Higher Education World University Rankings ranks EPFL as the world’s 19th best school for Engineering and Technology in 2020.
EPFL typically scores high on faculty to student ratio, international outlook and scientific impact. The CWTS Leiden Ranking that “aims to provide highly accurate measurements of the scientific impact of universities” ranks EPFL world 13th, and 1st in Europe in the 2013 rankings for all the sciences.
Although EPFL generally ranks well on measures such as citation index, international outlook and scientific impact, due to the young age and small size of the school, it tends to rank comparatively low in name-brand surveys. The Times 2017 reputation ranking where EPFL was ranked world 45th, comparatively low for EPFL.
The Times 100 Under 50 Rankings is a ranking of the top 100 universities in the world under 50 years old. Since EPFL in its current form was formed in 1969, it is included in this ranking, and was ranked 1st in the world for three years in a row in 2015, 2016 and 2017, and 2nd in the world in 2018 and 2019.
Times Higher Education also ranked EPFL as the most international university in the world two years in a row 2014 and 2015.