Until the creation of the Doctoral School 540 (ED 540) in 2010, there was no Doctoral School devoted to the Humanities and Social Sciences at the École normale supérieure. The Doctoral School 540 aims at:

  • Promoting interdisciplinarity and plurality of approaches for doctoral studies, in keeping with the ENS academic identity as it is experienced by normaliens students.
  • Supporting a better way of organising and systematising cooperation between the various departments and research units of the ENS.

Initially, the ED 540 only accepted doctoral students whose research brought together Humanities and Sciences, willing to achieve pioneering work within emerging fields of interests, at the interface between several disciplines.

Any student who intends to pursue research with a supervisor attached to any of the research units based at the ENS is now eligible.