Our director shares his vision of the school. In a few words, ESPOL is a place of encounter, transition and innovation that prepares its students for a promising future.
ESPOL: Growing, learning, thriving
To me ESPOL represents something special and I know the same is true for its students, its staff, and its alumni. It is a place of encounters: where tremendous students interact with the equally fantastic teaching and admin staff. It is also a place of professional transition, where students come to learn, to discover more about themselves at the same time as they study, before then going on to further study as well as exciting careers in a vast number of countries.
During their time at ESPOL our students inevitably ask a lot of questions: questions of their professors; questions of their peers, and questions of themselves even. So my vision for the school is to foster this spirit of enquiry, the habit of asking questions, in order to make it a place of memorable intellectual encounters.
I also believe that internationalisation has to be at the heart of everything we do. From the beginning, our undergraduate degrees have been designed around bilingualism, amongst students and staff alike. We are also committed to promoting opportunities for international mobility as well as welcoming a range of international students and staff. Our campus is thus designed to be a place for international encounters.
We know our students are not destined to stay here forever. That is why we want them to leave with a range of skills in order to make the demanding transition to further study or the start of a successful career. Disciplinary knowledge is essential to this naturally, yet I also consider that part of our core mission is preparing ESPOL graduates to live and work in other countries.
To achieve all the above, it is vital to be innovative. ESPOL has a proud record of pedagogical innovation: a bilingual French/English degree in European political science; the first dedicated international relations degree in France, the first Politics, Philosophy and Economics degree at a French university, to name but a few. Our innovative approach extends to our English-language Masters degrees that take advantage of our highly international team of teaching staff and growing reputation abroad. In 2023 we welcomed our first PhD students – a recognition of the excellence of our research.
But innovation is only meaningful if it has a purpose. The inspiration behind our efforts to offer the best quality education and research possible is the set of values the Catholic University of Lille stands for. We try to provide a thoroughly rounded education. Rounded in the distinct sense of providing all the intellectual content associated with cutting edge undergraduate, masters, and doctoral degrees, while also getting our students to think about the bigger picture of their relationship to society and the environment.
The notion of service to society is fundamental to our work. By this I mean the idea of becoming actively engaged as a citizen and seeking to make a positive contribution to the future. I want the education and research we offer to be geared towards trying to think about solutions to local, national, and global problems rather than highlighting only impasses or blockages. After all, ESPOL was founded on the premise that political science and its cognate disciplines offer us a way to think through problems and how we can solve them.
Andrew Glencross, Director of ESPOL
