Overview
Originally part of the École pratique des hautes études (EPHE) as its VI Section: Sciences Économiques et Sociales, the EHESS gained autonomy as an independent higher education institution on 23 January 1975. The creation of a dedicated branch for social science research within the EPHE was supported by several initiatives of the Rockefeller Foundation dating back to the 1920s. After WWII, the Rockefeller Foundation invested more funds, in the aims of favorizing non-Marxist sociological studies. Thus, the VIth section was created in 1947, and Lucien Febvre, affected by Georges Gurvitch, took its head. Soon after its creation (1947), the VI Section, later EHESS, became one of the most influential shapers of contemporary historiography, area studies and social sciences methodology, thanks to the contribution of eminent scholars such as Fernand Braudel, Jacques Le Goff or François Furet. F. Braudel succeeded in 1962 to L. Febvre and concentrated the various study groups at its present emplacement on boulevard Raspail, in part by a financing from the Ford Foundation.
Today, the EHESS is one of France's prestigious Grands Établissements. It functions as a research, teaching, and degree-granting institution. It offers advanced students high-level programs intended to lead to research careers. Students are admitted by dossier and undertake at the EHESS master programs and doctoral studies. The main areas of specialization include: history, literary theory, linguistics, philosophy, philology, sociology, anthropology, economics, cognitive science, demographics, geography, archaeology, psychology, law, and mathematics, although the institution's focus is on interdisciplinary research within these fields. The EHESS currently hosts more than 80 research centers (among which several joint research units with the CNRS) and 22 doctoral programs, 13 of which in partnership with other French Universities and Grandes Écoles.
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