Ecole Normale Supérieure (The)

The Ecole normale supérieure (ENS) is the only major educational institution in France which trains both humanists and scientists. This interdisciplinarity and the wide intellectual freedom granted to its students have helped to make it famous. Instruction takes place in thirteen departments or sections, all of which have research laboratories.

A number of professors participate in the film, and some recent research is presented, including work done by the laboratory for development and evolution of the nervous system, the laboratory for the molecular biology of development, the laboratory for research into the yeast genome, and the laboratory for research into molecular activation and electrochemical reactivity.

Research in physics is also represented: the quantum fluids group, the group working on soft matter, instabilities, and phase transitions, and the physics of biomolecules group.

In all these laboratories, contact between researchers and students is emphasized, and the ENS thus pursues its dual mission as a teaching facility and an institute for basic and applied research.