London School of Economics

Coordinates: 51°30′50″N 0°07′00″W / 51.51389°N 0.11667°W / 51.51389; -0.11667
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The London School of Economics and Political Science
)

London School of Economics and Political Science
ex officio)
Academic staff
1,830 (2021/22)[3]
Administrative staff
2,260 (2021/22)[3]
Students12,975 (2021/22)[4]
Undergraduates5,575 (2021/22)[4]
Postgraduates7,400 (2021/22)[4]
Location
London
,
England

51°30′50″N 0°07′00″W / 51.51389°N 0.11667°W / 51.51389; -0.11667
CampusUrban
President and Vice-Chancellor[a]Eric Neumayer (interim)
NewspaperThe Beaver
ColoursPurple, black and gold[5]
Affiliations
MascotBeaver
Websitelse.ac.uk

The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) is a public research university in London, England, and a member institution of the University of London. Founded in 1895 by Fabian Society members Sidney Webb, Beatrice Webb, Graham Wallas and George Bernard Shaw, LSE joined the University of London in 1900 and established its first degree courses under the auspices of the university in 1901.[6] LSE began awarding its degrees in its own name in 2008,[7] prior to which it awarded degrees of the University of London. It became a university in its own right within the University of London in 2022.[8]

LSE is located in the

sixth-largest endowment of any university in the UK and in 2022/23, it had an income of £466.1 million of which £39.6 million was from research grants.[1] Despite its name, the school is organised into 25 academic departments and institutes which conduct teaching and research across a range of pure and applied social sciences.[9]

LSE is a member of the Russell Group, Association of Commonwealth Universities and the European University Association, and is typically considered part of the "golden triangle" of research universities in the south east of England. The LSE also forms part of CIVICA – The European University of Social Sciences, a network of eight European universities focused on research in the social sciences.[10] In the 2021 Research Excellence Framework, the school had the third highest grade point average (joint with Cambridge).[11]

LSE alumni and faculty include 55 past or present

European university in a 2014 global census of US dollar billionaires.[14]

History

Sidney Webb

Origins

The London School of Economics and Political Science was founded in 1895

W. S. de Mattos and William Clark.[17]

LSE records that the proposal to establish the school was conceived during a breakfast meeting on 4 August 1894, between the Webbs, Louis Flood, and George Bernard Shaw.[15] The proposal was accepted by the trustees in February 1895[20] and LSE held its first classes in October of that year, in rooms at 9 John Street, Adelphi,[21] in the City of Westminster.

20th century

The school joined the federal University of London in 1900 and was recognised as a Faculty of Economics of the university. The University of London degrees of BSc (Econ) and DSc (Econ) were established in 1901, the first university degrees dedicated to the social sciences.[21] Expanding rapidly over the following years, the school moved initially to the nearby 10 Adelphi Terrace, then to Clare Market and Houghton Street. The foundation stone of the Old Building, on Houghton Street, was laid by King George V in 1920;[15] the building was opened in 1922.[21]

The school's arms,[22] including its motto and beaver mascot, were adopted in February 1922,[23] on the recommendation of a committee of twelve, including eight students, which was established to research the matter.[24] The Latin motto, rerum cognoscere causas, is taken from Virgil's Georgics. Its English translation is "to Know the Causes of Things"[23] and it was suggested by Professor Edwin Cannan.[15] The beaver mascot was selected for its associations with "foresight, constructiveness, and industrious behaviour".[24]

Friedrich Hayek, who taught at LSE during the 1930s and 1940s

The 1930s economic debate between LSE and the University of Cambridge is well known in academic circles. The rivalry between academic opinion at LSE and Cambridge goes back to the school's roots when LSE's Edwin Cannan (1861–1935), Professor of Economics, and Cambridge's Professor of Political Economy, Alfred Marshall (1842–1924), the leading economist of the day, argued about the bedrock matter of economics and whether the subject should be considered as an organic whole. (Marshall disapproved of LSE's separate listing of pure theory and its insistence on economic history.)[25]

The dispute also concerned the question of the economist's role, and whether this should be as a detached expert or a practical adviser.[26] Despite the traditional view that the LSE and Cambridge were fierce rivals through the 1920s and 30s, they worked together in the 1920s on the London and Cambridge Economic Service.[27] However, the 1930s brought a return to disputes as economists at the two universities argued over how best to address the economic problems caused by the Great Depression.[28]

The main figures in this debate were

Austrian School, which emphasised free trade and opposed state involvement.[28]

During World War II, the school decamped from London to the University of Cambridge, occupying buildings belonging to Peterhouse.[29]

Following the decision to establish a modern

Imperial College. However, this avenue was not pursued and instead, the London Business School was created as a college of the university.[30]

In 1966, the appointment of Sir Walter Adams as director sparked opposition from the student union and student protests. Adams had previously been principal of the University College of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, and the students objected to his failure to oppose Rhodesia's Unilateral Declaration of Independence and cooperation with the white minority government. This broadened into wider concerns about links between the LSE and its governors and investments in Rhodesia and South Africa and concerns over LSE's response to student protests. These led to the closure of the school for 25 days in 1969 after a student attempt to dismantle the school gates resulted in the arrest of over 30 students. Injunctions were taken out against 13 students (nine from LSE), with three students ultimately being suspended, two foreign students being deported, and two staff members seen as supporting the protests being fired.[15][31][32]

In the 1970s, four Nobel Memorial Prizes in Economic Sciences were awarded to economists associated with the LSE: John Hicks (lecturer 1926–36) in 1972, Friedrich Hayek (lecturer 1931–50) in 1974, James Meade (lecturer 1947–1957) in 1977 and Arthur Lewis (BSc Econ 1937, and the LSE's first Black academic 1938–44) in 1979.[15][33][34]

21st century

Stonework featuring the initials of LSE

In the early 21st century, the LSE had a wide impact on British politics. The Guardian described such influence in 2005 when it stated:

Once again the political clout of the school, which seems to be closely wired into parliament, Whitehall, and the Bank of England, is being felt by ministers. ... The strength of LSE is that it is close to the political process:

Lady Howe.[35]

Commenting in 2001 on the rising status of the LSE, the British magazine The Economist stated that "two decades ago the LSE was still the poor relation of the University of London's other colleges. Now... it regularly follows Oxford and Cambridge in league tables of research output and teaching quality and is at least as well-known abroad as Oxbridge". According to the magazine, the school "owes its success to the single-minded, American-style exploitation of its brand name and political connections by the recent directors, particularly Mr Giddens and his predecessor, John Ashworth" and raises money from foreign students' high fees, which are attracted by academic stars such as Richard Sennett.[36]

In 2006, the school published a report disputing the costs of British government proposals to introduce compulsory ID cards.[37][38][39] LSE academics were also represented on numerous national and international bodies in the early 21st century, including the UK Airports Commission,[40] Independent Police Commission,[41] Migration Advisory Committee,[42] UN Advisory Board on Water and Sanitation,[43] London Finance Commission,[44] HS2 Limited,[45] the UK government's Infrastructure Commission[46] and advising on architecture and urbanism for the London 2012 Olympics[47]

The LSE gained its own degree-awarding powers in 2006 and the first LSE degrees (rather than degrees of the University of London) were awarded in 2008.[15]

Following the passage of the University of London Act 2018, the LSE (along with other member institutions of the University of London) announced in early 2019 that they would seek university status in their own right while remaining part of the federal university.[48] Approval of university title was received from the Office for Students in May 2022 and updated Articles of Association formally constituting the school as a university were approved by LSE council 5 July 2022.[49][50]

Controversies

In February 2011, LSE had to face the consequences of

matriculating one of Muammar Gaddafi's sons while accepting a £1.5m donation to the university from his family.[51] LSE director Howard Davies resigned over allegations about the institution's links to the Libyan regime.[52] The LSE announced in a statement that it had accepted his resignation with "great regret" and that it had set up an external inquiry into the school's relationship with the Libyan regime and Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, to be conducted by the former lord chief justice Harry Woolf.[52]

In 2013, the LSE was featured in a

Panorama documentary on North Korea, filmed inside the repressive regime by undercover journalists attached to a trip by the LSE's Grimshaw Club, a student society of the international relations department. The trip had been sanctioned by high-level North Korean officials.[53][54] The trip caused international media attention as a BBC journalist was posing as a part of LSE.[55] There was debate as to whether this put the students' lives in jeopardy in the repressive regime if a reporter had been exposed.[56] The North Korean government made hostile threats towards the students and LSE after the publicity, which forced an apology from the BBC.[54]

In August 2015, it was revealed that the university was paid approximately £40,000 for a "glowing report" for Camila Batmanghelidjh's charity, Kids Company.[57] The study was used by Batmanghelidjh to prove that the charity provided good value for money and was well managed. The university did not disclose that the study was funded by the charity.

In 2023, the LSE formally cut ties with the LGBT charity Stonewall, a decision which was sharply criticized as transphobic by the LSE Student Union but praised by gender-critical activists as being conducive to freedom of speech.[58][59]

Industrial Disputes

In the summer of 2017, dozens of campus cleaners contracted via Noonan Services went on weekly strikes, protesting outside key buildings and causing significant disruption during end-of-year examinations.

Owen Jones did not cross the picket line after arriving for a debate on grammar schools with Peter Hitchens.[62] It was announced in June 2018 that some 200 outsourced workers at the LSE would be offered in-house contracts.[63]

Since 2014/15, levels of academic casualisation have increased at the LSE, with the number of academics on fixed-term contracts increasing from 47% in 2016/2017 to 59% in 2021/2022,[64] according to Higher Education Statistical Agency data (internal LSE data puts the latest figure at 58.5%).[65] During this same period, comparable universities such as University of Edinburgh, University College London and Imperial all increased their rates of permanent staff relative to those on fixed term contracts.[64] Only Oxford had a higher proportion of casual academic work for the 2021/2022 year (66%) although in contrast to LSE, the proportion remained constant rather than rising.[64] As a result, the student-to-permanent staff ratio at LSE has worsened and had, as of July 2023, the worst student-to-permanent staff ratio among comparable universities in the UK, according to HESA data.[64] According to research conducted by the LSE UCU Branch into staff well-being, 82% of fixed term academic staff at the LSE experienced regular or constant anxiety about their professional futures.[65] In the same survey, overwork and mental health issues were reported as endemic among respondents, with 40% of fellows reporting that their teaching hours exceeded LSE's universal teaching limit of 100 hours per academic year for LSE Fellows.[65]

In response to industrial action, which included not marking student work, taken by UCU in the summer of 2023 over pay and casualised working conditions, the LSE management took the decision to not accept partial performance of duties and to impose pay deductions on academic staff participating in the action.[66] The LSE also introduced an 'Exceptional Degree Classification Schemes' policy,[67] allowing undergraduate and taught postgraduate students to be awarded provisional degrees on the basis of fewer grades than normally required. In the event that the final classification (once all marks are available) is lower than the provisional classification, the higher provisional classification will stand as the degree classification.[67]

The World Turned Upside Down

The World Turned Upside Down – Taiwan is coloured differently from China

A sculpture by Mark Wallinger, The World Turned Upside Down, which features a globe resting on its north pole, was installed in Sheffield Street on the LSE campus on 26 March 2019. The artwork attracted controversy for showing Taiwan as a sovereign state rather than as part of China,[68][69][70] Lhasa being denoted as a full capital and depicting boundaries between India and China as recognised internationally. The sculpture also did not depict the State of Palestine as a separate country from Israel.

After protests and reactions from both Chinese and Taiwanese students,[71][72] The university decided later that year that it would retain the original design which chromatically displayed the PRC and Taiwan as different entities consistent with the status quo, but with the addition of an asterisk beside the name of Taiwan and a corresponding placard that clarified the institution's position regarding the controversy.[73][74]

Campus and estate

Old Building

Since 1902, LSE has been based at

Houses of Parliament
.

The Sir Arthur Lewis Building houses the Department of Economics and the International Growth Centre.

In 1920,

Kingsway and Aldwych. Alongside teaching and academic space, the institution owns 11 student halls of residence across London, a West End theatre (the Peacock), early years centre, NHS medical centre and extensive sports ground in Berrylands, south London. LSE operates the George IV public house[75] and the students' union operates the Three Tuns bar.[76] The school's campus is noted for its numerous public art installations, which include Richard Wilson's Square the Block,[77] Michael Brown's Blue Rain,[78] Christopher Le Brun's Desert Window,[79] and Turner Prize-winner Mark Wallinger's The World Turned Upside Down.[80][81][82]

Centre Building, opened in 2019

Since the early 2000s, the campus has undergone an extensive refurbishment project and a major fund-raising "Campaign for LSE" raised over £100 million in what was one of the largest university fund-raising exercises outside North America. This process began with the £35 million renovation of the British Library of Political and Economic Science by Foster and Partners.[83]

The Cheng Kin Ku Building (CKK) houses the LSE Law School and the Department of Geography and Environment.

In 2003, LSE purchased the former Public Trustee building at 24 Kingsway and engaged

The Princess Royal as the new home for the Department of Economics, International Growth Centre and its associated economic research centres. In 2015, LSE brought its ownership of buildings on Lincoln's Inn Fields to six, with the purchase of 5 Lincoln's Inn Fields on the north side of the square, which has since been converted into faculty accommodation.[85]

Saw Swee Hock Student Centre

The first new campus building for more than 40 years, the Saw Swee Hock Student Centre, named after the Singaporean statistician and philanthropist, opened in January 2014 following an architectural design competition managed by RIBA Competitions.[86][87] The building provides accommodation for the LSE Students' Union, LSE accommodation office and LSE careers service as well as a bar, events space, gymnasium, rooftop terrace, learning café, dance studio, and media centre.[88] Designed by architectural practice O’Donnell and Tuomey, the building achieved a BREEAM 'Outstanding' rating for environmental sustainability, won multiple awards including the RIBA National Award and London Building of the Year Award, and was shortlisted for the Stirling Prize.[89][90][91][92]

The 16th-century Old Curiosity Shop is now owned (freehold) and managed by the LSE.

Centre Building

The Centre Building, situated opposite the British Library of Political and Economic Science, opened in June 2019. Designed by

Rogers Stirk Harbour and Partners following a RIBA competition, the 13-storey building includes 14 seminar rooms seating between 20 and 60, 234 study spaces, a 200-seater auditorium, as well as three lecture theatres.[93] The building hosts the School of Public Policy, the Departments of Government and International Relations, the European Institute, and the International Inequalities Institute. It includes publicly accessible roof terraces and a renovated square at the centre of campus.[94][95][96] The building design was recognised with RIBA's London Award and National Award in 2021.[97][98][99][100]

Marshall Building

The Marshall Building, located at 44 Lincoln's Inn Fields, opened in January 2022.[101] Designed by Grafton Architects and named after British investor Paul Marshall, the building houses the Departments of Management, Accounting, and Finance, sports facilities, and the Marshall Institute for Philanthropy and Social Entrepreneurship.[102][103][104] The site was previously home to the Francis Crick Institute's laboratories, which LSE purchased in 2013.[105][106]

Future expansion

LSE Campus as viewed from the terrace of the New Academic Building in January 2018, showing the Centre Building's redevelopment and the demolition of 44 Lincoln's Inn Fields

On 15 November 2017, LSE announced that it acquired the Nuffield Building at 35 Lincoln's Inn Fields from the Royal College of Surgeons and plans to redevelop the site to host the Firoz Lalji Global Hub, the departments of Mathematics, Statistics and Methodology, the Data Science Institute, and conference and executive education facilities. The new building will be designed by David Chipperfield Architects.[107][108][109][110]

Sustainability

In 2021, LSE claimed to be the first UK university to be independently verified as carbon-neutral, which it achieved by funding rainforest trees to

offset emissions through the Finnish organisation (Oy) Compensate.[111][112] However, LSE omitted some of its emissions in its calculation and thus did not offset all of them. While it measured and offset emissions from heating, electricity, and faculty air travel, the school left out other travel-related emissions, as well as emissions from construction and on-campus food. LSE plans to offset the remaining emissions (scope 1 through 3) by 2050.[113][114][115]

Organisation and administration

Governance

The George IV, a pub owned by LSE

Although LSE is a constituent college of the federal University of London, it is in many ways comparable with free-standing, self-governing, and independently funded universities, and it awards its own degrees.

LSE is incorporated under the

Charities Act 1993.[116] The principal governance bodies of the LSE are: the LSE Council; the Court of Governors; the academic board; and the director and director's management team.[116]

The LSE Council is responsible for strategy and its members are company directors of the school. It has specific responsibilities in relation to areas including the monitoring of institutional performance; finance and financial sustainability; audit arrangements; estate strategy; human resource and employment policy; health and safety; "educational character and mission", and student experience. The council is supported in carrying out its role by a number of committees that report directly to it.[116]

The Court of Governors deals with certain constitutional matters and has pre-decision discussions on key policy issues and the involvement of individual governors in the school's activities. The court has the following formal powers: the appointment of members of the court, its subcommittees, and the council; election of the chair and vice chairs of the court and council and honorary fellows of the school; the amendment of the memorandum and articles of association; and the appointment of external auditors.[116]

The academic board is LSE's principal academic body and considers all major issues of general policy affecting the academic life of the school and its development. It is chaired by the director, with staff and student membership, and is supported by its own structure of committees. The vice chair of the academic board serves as a non-director member of the council and makes a termly report to the council.[116] Since the COVID-19 Pandemic, the Academic Board has moved online and has not yet returned to in-person meetings, changing the dynamic of engagement.

President and Vice-Chancellor

I. G. Patel
Sir John Ashworth
Craig Calhoun

The president and vice-chancellor (titled director until 2022) is the head of LSE and its chief executive officer, responsible for executive management and leadership on academic issues. The vice-chancellor reports to and is accountable to the council. The vice-chancellor is also the accountable officer for the purposes of the Office for Students financial memorandum. The LSE's current interim vice-chancellor is Eric Neumayer, who replaced Minouche Shafik on 23 June 2023. In July 2023, the LSE announced that Hewlett Foundation head Larry Kramer would become president and vice-chancellor in April 2024.[117]

The president is supported by four pro-vice chancellors with designated portfolios (education; research; planning and resources; faculty development), the school secretary, the chief operating officer, the chief finance officer, and the chief philanthropy and global engagement officer.[118]

President and Vice-Chancellor / Directors (old)
Years Name
1895–1903 William Hewins
1903–1908 Sir Halford Mackinder
1908–1919 The Hon. William Pember Reeves
1919–1937 Lord Beveridge
1937–1957 Sir Alexander Carr-Saunders
1957–1967 Sir Sydney Caine
1967–1974 Sir Walter Adams
1974–1984 Lord Dahrendorf
1984–1990
Indraprasad Gordhanbhai Patel
1990–1996
Sir John Ashworth
1996–2003 Lord Giddens
2003–2011 Sir Howard Davies
2011–2012 Judith Rees (interim)
2012–2016 Craig Calhoun
2016–2017 Julia Black (interim)
2017–2023 Minouche Shafik
2023– Eric Neumayer (interim)

Titled as director and president[119]

Academic departments and institutes

LSE's research and teaching are organised into a network of independent academic departments established by the LSE Council, the school's governing body, on the advice of the academic board, the school's senior academic authority. There are currently 27 academic departments or institutes.

  • Department of Accounting
  • Department of Anthropology
  • Department of Economic History
  • Department of Economics
  • Department of Finance
  • Department of Geography and Environment
  • Department of Gender Studies
  • Department of Health Policy
  • Department of Government
  • Department of International Development
  • Department of International History
  • Department of International Relations
  • Department of Management
  • Department of Mathematics
  • Department of Media and Communications
  • Department of Methodology
  • Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method
  • Department of Psychological and Behavioural Science
  • Department of Social Policy
  • Department of Sociology
  • Department of Statistics
  • European Institute
  • International Inequalities Institute
  • Institute of Public Affairs
  • Language Centre
  • LSE Law School
  • Marshall Institute for Philanthropy and Social Entrepreneurship[120]
  • School of Public Policy

Finances

The LSE group has an endowment (as of 31 July 2016) of £119M and had a total income for 2015–16 (excluding donations and endowments) of £311M (£293M in 2014–15) with expenditure of £307M (2014–15 £302M). Key sources of income included £177M from tuition fees and education contacts (2014–15 £167M), £25M from funding council grants (2014–15 £22M), £32M from research grants (2014–15 – £27M) and £5.3M from investment income (2014–15 £4.7M).[121]

The Times Higher Education Pay Survey 2017 revealed that, among larger, non-specialist institutions, LSE professors and academics were the highest paid in the UK, with average incomes of £103,886 and £65,177 respectively.[122]

Endowment

The London School of Economics (LSE) is aiming to increase the size of its endowment fund to more than £1bn, which would make it one of the best resourced institutions in the UK and the world. The effort was initiated in 2016 by Lord Myners, then chairman of the LSE's Council and Court of Governors. The plan includes working with wealthy alumni of LSE to make large contributions, increasing the annual budget surplus, and launching a new, widescale alumni donor campaign. The plan to grow LSE's endowment to more than £1bn has been continued by Lord Myners' successors at the LSE.[123] The LSE has stated that currently "limited endowment funding constrains our ability to offer 'needs blind' admission to students".[121] Between 2015 and 2022, the endowment increased from £113 million to £229 million.[124][125]

Academic year

LSE continues to adopt a three-term structure and has not moved to semesters.

Lent Term from mid-January to late March, and Summer Term from late April to mid-June. Certain departments operate reading weeks in early November and mid-February.[126]

Logo, arms and mascot

LSE's "red block" logo

The school's historic coat of arms is used on official documentation including degree certificates and transcripts and includes the motto – rerum cognoscere causas, a line taken from Virgil's Georgics meaning "to know the causes of things", together with the school's mascot – a beaver. Both these symbols, adopted in February 1922, continue to be held in high regard to this day with the beaver chosen because of its representation as "a hard-working and industrious yet sociable animal", attributes that the founders hoped LSE students to both possess and aspire to.[127] The school's weekly newspaper is still entitled The Beaver, Rosebery residence hall's bar is called the Tipsy Beaver and LSE sports teams are known as the Beavers.[128] The institution has two sets of colours – brand and academic – red being the brand colour used on signage, publications and in buildings across campus and purple, black and gold for academic purposes including presentation ceremonies and graduation dress.

LSE's present 'red block' logo was modified as part of a rebrand in the early 2000s. As a trademarked brand, it is carefully protected but can be produced in various forms to reflect different requirements.[129] In its full form it contains the full name of the institution to the right of the block with a further small empty red square at the end, but it is adapted for each academic department or professional service division to provide a cohesive brand across the institution.

Academic profile

Admissions

UCAS Admission Statistics
2022 2021 2020 2019 2018
Applications[α][130] 26,625 25,845 22,115 21,255 19,725
Accepted[α][130] 2,150 1,715 2,245 1,705 1,790
Applications/Accepted Ratio[α] 12.4 15.1 9.9 12.5 11.0
Offer Rate (%)[β][131] 26.1 21.9 36.5 35.2 34.0
Average Entry Tariff[132] 195 193 177 168
  1. ^ a b c Main scheme applications, International and UK
  2. ^ UK domiciled applicants
HESA Student Body Composition (2022)
Domicile[133] and Ethnicity[134] Total
British White 16% 16
 
British Ethnic Minorities[b] 19% 19
 
International EU 15% 15
 
International Non-EU 50% 50
 
Undergraduate Widening Participation Indicators[135][136]
Female 53% 53
 
Private School 30% 30
 
Low Participation Areas[c] 7% 7
 
St Clement's Building

The LSE received 20,000 applications for 1,600 undergraduate places in 2017 or 12.5 applicants per place.[137] All undergraduate applications, including international applications, are made through UCAS.[137] LSE had the 8th highest average entry qualification for undergraduates of any UK university in 2021–22, with new students averaging 195 UCAS points, equivalent to just over AAAA in A-level grades.[132] The university gave offers of admission to 37.0% of its applicants in 2015, the 3rd lowest amongst the Russell Group.[138]

Postgraduate students at the LSE are required to have a first or upper second Class UK honours degree, or its foreign equivalent, for master's degrees, while direct entry to the MPhil/PhD programme requires a UK taught master's with merit, or foreign equivalent. Admission to the diploma requires a UK degree or equivalent plus relevant experience.[139] The intake to applications ratio for postgraduate degree programmes is very competitive; the MSc Financial Mathematics had a ratio of just over 4% in 2016.[140][141]

31.6% of LSE's undergraduates are

privately educated, the ninth highest proportion amongst mainstream British universities.[142] In the 2016–17 academic year, the university had a domicile breakdown of 33:18:50 of UK:EU:non-EU students respectively with a female-to-male ratio of 52:47.[143]

Programmes and degrees

The school offers over 140

accountancy and sociology, and the school also employed Britain's first full-time lecturer in economic history.[146] Courses are split across more than thirty research centres and nineteen departments, plus a Language Centre.[147] Lastly, in partnership with the federal University of London, LSE oversees 9 BSc programmes as the lead institution which designs the curriculum.[148] Students who chose to study online experience the same unique academic experience as on-campus, they are considered a part of LSE community and they have a variety of options to interact with their university, such as the LSE general course.[149]

John Watkins Plaza at the London School of Economics

Since programmes are all within the social sciences, they closely resemble each other, and undergraduate students usually take at least one course module in a subject outside of their degree for their first and second years of study, promoting a broader education in the social sciences.[150] At undergraduate level, some departments have as few as 90 students across the three years of study.[citation needed] Since September 2010,[citation needed] it has been compulsory for first year undergraduates to participate in LSE 100: Understanding the Causes of Things alongside normal studies.[151]

From 1902, following its absorption into the

NYU Stern and HEC Paris, LSE also offers the TRIUM Executive MBA. This was globally ranked third among executive MBAs by the Financial Times in 2016.[155]

Research

According to the 2021 Research Excellence Framework, LSE was rated joint third (along with Cambridge) in the UK for the quality (GPA) of its research and 33rd for its research power.[156] In the 2014 Research Excellence Framework, LSE had the joint highest percentage of world-leading research among research submitted of any institution that entered more than one unit of assessment[157] and was ranked third by cumulative grade point average with a score of 3.35, beating both Oxford and Cambridge.[158] It was ranked 23rd in the country for research power by Research Fortnight based on its REF2014 results, and 28th in research power by the Times Higher Education.[157][159] This followed the Research Assessment Exercise in 2008 where the school was placed second equal nationally on GPA, first for fraction of world-leading (4*) research and fourth for fraction of world-leading or internationally excellent (3* and 4*) research in LSE's analysis of the results,[160] fourth equal for GPA and 29th for research power in Times Higher Education's analysis,[157] and 27th in research power by Research Fortnight's analysis.[159]

According to analysis of the REF 2014 subject results by Times Higher Education, the school is the UK's top research university in terms of GPA of research submitted in business and management; area studies; and communication, cultural and media studies, library and information management, and second in law; politics and international studies; economics and econometrics; and social work and social policy.[161]

Houghton Street is the centre of the LSE campus.

Research centres

The school houses a number of centres including the

Lord Stern), LSE Cities, the UK Department for International Development funded International Growth Centre and one of the six the UK government-backed 'What Works Centres' – the What Works Centre for Local Economic Growth. The Greater London Group was an influential research centre within LSE from the late 1950s on, before being subsumed into the LSE London research group.[162] In February 2015, Angelina Jolie and William Hague launched the UK's first academic Centre on Women, Peace and Security, based at the school. The centre aims to contribute to global women's rights issues, including the prosecution of war rape and women's engagement in politics, through academic research, a post-graduate teaching program, public engagement, and collaboration with international organisations.[163][164] Furthermore, in May 2016 it was announced that Jolie-Pitt and Hague would join Jane Connors and Madeleine Rees as visiting professors in practice from September 2016.[165]

LSE IDEAS

LSE IDEAS is a foreign policy think tank at the London School of Economics and Political Science. IDEAS was founded as a think tank for Diplomacy and Strategy in February 2008.[166] It was founded by Professor Michael Cox and Professor Arne Westad. In 2015 it was jointly ranked as world's second-best university think tank for the third year running alongside the LSE Public Policy Group, after Harvard University's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.[167]

Partnerships

LSE has academic partnerships in teaching and research with six universities – with

Sciences Po in Paris.[168]

Together they offer a range of double or joint degree programmes including an MA in International and World History (with Columbia) and an MSc in international affairs with

The school also runs exchange programmes with a number of international business schools through the Global Master's in Management programme and an undergraduate student exchange programme with the University of California, Berkeley in Political Science. LSE is the only UK member school in the CEMS Alliance, and the LSE Global Master's in Management is the only programme in the UK to offer the CEMS Master's in International Management (CEMS MIM) as a double degree option, allowing students to study at one of 34 CEMS partner universities.[173][174] It also participates in Key Action 1 of the European Union-wide Erasmus+ programme, encouraging staff and student mobility for teaching, although not the other Key Actions in the programme.[175]

The school is a member of the

LSE’s European Institute offers a Double Degree in European and International Public Policy and Politics with Bocconi University in Milan.[182]

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