The London School of Economics and Political Science (commonly referred to as the London School of Economics or LSE) is a public research university located in London, England and a constituent college of the federal University of London. Founded in 1895 by Fabian Society members Sidney Webb, Beatrice Webb, Graham Wallas and George Bernard Shaw for the betterment of society, LSE joined the University of London in 1900 and first issued degrees to its students in 1902. Despite its name, LSE conducts teaching and research across a range of legal studies and social sciences in 26 academic departments or institutes including mathematics, statistics, law, media, human geography, public affairs and international history.
LSE is located in Westminster, central London, near the boundary between Covent Garden and Holborn. The area is historically known as Clare Market. It has 10,600 students and just over 3,000 staff and had a total income of £299.6 million in 2014/15, of which £27.1 million was from research grants. 155 nationalities are represented amongst LSE's student body and the school boasts the highest percentage of international students (70%) out of all British universities. The School is organised into constituent academic departments and 25 research centres.
The Schoolis recognised as one of the leading social science universities in the world, ranked among the top universities nationally and in the world. According to the Research Excellence Framework published in 2014, the School has the highest proportion of world-leading research among all British non-specialist universities. LSE is considered part of the golden triangle of highly research-intensive English universities. It is a member of academic organisations such as the Association of Commonwealth Universities, the European University Association and the Russell Group.
The LSE has produced many notable alumni in the fields of law, history, economics, philosophy, business, literature, media and politics. Alumni and staff include heads of state or government, 28 members of the current British House of Commons and 46 members of the current House of Lords. To date, 26% (or 12 out of 46) of all the Nobel Prizes in Economics have been awarded to LSE alumni and current and former staff. Out of all European universities, LSE has educated the most billionaires according to a 2014 global census of dollar billionaires.
The Department of Accounting continues to enjoy a reputation as one of the leading groups in the world for teaching and research on the economic, institutional and organisational aspects of accounting and financial management. Maintaining and advancing our leading international reputation for teaching and research is our top priority, and thus, we are committed:
We are proud about the diversity in everything we do, as it is the key to our competitive advantage locally as well as globally. We therefore strive to continue to combine 'global appeal' with a distinctive 'European orientation' in terms of institutional knowledge and affiliations as well as intellectual traditions.
LSE's Anthropology Department, with a long and distinguished history, remains a leading centre for innovative research and teaching. We are committed to both maintaining and renewing the core of the discipline, and our undergraduate teaching and training of PhD students is recognised as outstanding.
The LSE Department of Economics is one of the biggest and best in the world, with expertise across the full spectrum of mainstream economics. A long-standing commitment to remaining at the cutting edge of developments in the field has ensured the lasting impact of its work on the discipline as a whole. Almost every major intellectual development within Economics over the past fifty years has had input from members of the department, which counts ten Nobel Prize winners among its current and former staff and students. Our alumni are employed in a wide range of national and international organisations, in government, international institutions, business and finance.
Following in a long, distinguished tradition of research and teaching, the Department of Economic History uses concepts and theories from the Social Sciences as a starting point for studying the development of real economies and understanding them in their social, political and cultural contexts.
The Department is home to by far the largest group of teachers and researchers in the field of economic, business and social history in the UK and probably the world. The composition and international delivery of its staff, academic visitors and students mean that its intellectual concerns range:
The department receives grants from the British Academy, The Leverhulme Trust, the Economic and Social Research Council and the European Union. Such grants enhance the depth and scope of research and teaching, and endorse continued commitment by the department to collaboration between history and the social sciences. Our research has been used by international agencies like World Bank and International Monetary Fund, government departments and local communities, and NGOs. A significant number of students trained in the Department are now employed at institutions all over the world in teaching and research posts.
The European Institute has seven Masters programmes - one of the broadest offerings on Europe in the world. Within each programme, students study a combination of core and optional courses, with around 75 taught courses to choose from.
The European Institute accepts applications to our doctoral programme in the areas of our four research themes: Governance and Democracy in the European Union, European Society, Political Economy in Europe and Europe beyond the EU.
The Department of Finance is devoted to excellence in teaching and research in the full range of the subfields of finance including corporate finance, asset pricing theory, risk management, empirical analysis of capital markets, behavioural finance, portfolio analysis, derivatives pricing, microstructure and financial econometrics.
The LSE Department of Finance (formerly part of the Department of Accounting and Finance) has grown in recent years to become one of the largest and most highly-regarded finance groups in the UK and Europe. It is closely associated with the LSE's Financial Markets Group which regularly hosts a wide variety of seminars, conferences and public addresses by leading academics and practitioners. With over 200 post-graduate students selected from a pool of top applicants world-wide, a faculty recruited from the top departments internationally, and a steady flow of distinguished visitors, we have a stimulating environment for research and learning that is on par with the best in the world.
The Department, along with the Departments of Accounting and Management, was ranked as the UK leader for Business and Management Studies in the 2014 Research Excellence Framework.
The Gender Institute was established in 1993 to address the major intellectual challenges posed by contemporary changes in gender relations. This remains a central aim of the Institute today, which is the largest research and teaching unit of its kind in Europe. The Gender Institute is interested in mapping and intervening in the gendered nature of social processes, and believes that an integrated interdisciplinary and global approach is needed to do so. We aim to combine theory and practice with an interdisciplinary and transnational scope. We are a recognised centre of research, teaching, policy advice and advocacy work, with faculty having won a range of awards, and with students from across the globe.
The Department of Geography and Environment at the LSE offers a unique opportunity to study Human Geography, Economic Geography and Environmental Social Science/Policy in a university institution which enjoys a worldwide reputation as an international centre of academic excellence for studying the social sciences. The LSE is located at the heart of London, one of the world's great capital cities, providing students with a rich diversity of academic, cultural, social and recreational facilities.
In our teaching the courses offered are designed to benefit from and complement the strengths and aspirations of the LSE. You will find a healthy balance of experienced and younger academics within the Department, and many of our staff have well-established international reputations in their fields of expertise. The Department has had three holders of the highly competitive Philip Leverhulme Prize Fellowships for researchers under 36.
The IGA aims to build a vibrant intellectual environment for original, rigorous and significant thinking and broader impact in London, but also to form an alliance of centres of excellence in research and policy thinking in emerging economies. By employing multidisciplinary approaches and encouraging evidence-based policy making, it also aspires to promote deeper understanding and peer-to-peer transfer of knowledge across emerging and developing economies. The IGA wants to offer a 'safe space' that is open, fair and transparent and where students, government, private sector and civil society from all around the world can meet to address the challenges of the 21st century.
IGA engages ten LSE departments and currently has eight constituent centres which includes six regional centres at different stages of development, LSE IDEAS, the second-ranked university-based think tank in the world, and the Centre for Women, Peace and Security recently established through a grant from the UK government.
The Department of Government at LSE, one of the largest political science departments in the UK. Our activities cover a comprehensive range of approaches to the study of politics, including:
The Department has always been able to take advantage of its prominent position within the London School of Economics and Political Science, the largest and most important European institution specialising solely in the social sciences. A large number of our graduate offerings involve collaboration with other departments and institutes in the School including the European Institute, the Methodology Institute, Urban and Regional Planning (in the Geography Department), International Relations, International Development, and Law.
The Department of International Development promotes interdisciplinary postgraduate teaching and research on processes of social, political and economic development and change. The department is dedicated to understanding problems of poverty and late development within local communities, as well as national and international political and economic systems.
Founded in 1954, the Department of International History is one of the youngest departments at LSE. But in its short life, it has risen to become one of the top five university history departments in the UK, thanks to both its internationally renowned graduate programme and research record.
Like the other departments at the School, the Department of International History grew up around a Chair and a special subject within the BSc (Econ) degree introduced after the Second World War. The Chair itself dates back into the inter-war period and is one of the two Chairs founded by Sir Daniel Stevenson, the other being at the Royal Institute of International Affairs. From 1932 the Stevenson Chair, as it came to be called at the School, formed the nucleus of the emerging Department of International History.
The International Inequalities Institute (III) was launched in 2015 with enthusiastic support from across the LSE. Recognising the LSE’s distinctive strengths, the III will provide co-ordination and strategic leadership on the inter-disciplinary analysis of inequalities.
The Department of International Relations celebrated its 75th anniversary in 2002-2003. You can read more at 75th Anniversary Department of International Relations and also read about the Foundation and History of the International Relations Department.
International Relations has been taught at LSE since 1924 when Philip Noel-Baker was appointed to a new, privately-endowed Chair of International Relations. The Department, which was set up three years later, was not only the first of its kind, but has remained a leading world centre for the development of the subject ever since. Its reputation for international excellence was recognised in the most recent National Research Assessment Exercise when the IR and Government Departments, assessed as one unit, received one of the highest rankings.
The Language Centre here at the London School of Economics reflects the specialist nature of the School itself, namely, a world class institution where the quality of teaching and research is paramount.
LSE is not just a multi-national university but also a multi-lingual one
Since the foundation of the LSE just over a century ago, the study of law has been an integral part of the School's mission. The Law Department is one of the largest in the School. Its special place in a school of social sciences has given legal studies in the Department a distinctive, interdisciplinary character. The Law Department has played a major role in policy debates and policy-making and in the education of lawyers and law teachers from around the world. It enjoys a uniquely cosmopolitan student body, and has deeply influenced legal education in most common law countries.
Staff and students in the Law Department come from all over the world, and bring to the Department an unparalleled international and interdisciplinary outlook in teaching and research. This has always been the mission of the LSE Law Department. As an important vehicle for this approach to legal studies, members of the LSE were prominent among the founders of the Modern Law Review, a journal that quickly achieved an international and influential role at the forefront of legal scholarship.
Closely linked to this innovative approach has been the exploration of new fields of study. Many important subjects were first taught and examined systematically from an academic perspective at the LSE. These include banking law, taxation law, civil litigation, company law, labour law, family law, aspects of welfare law, and studies of the legal system and the legal profession. These subjects, and many others, have since become central to the concerns of lawyers and researchers.
The Department of Management is a world leading centre for education and research in business and management, and we are ranked #2 in the world for social science and management. We sit at the heart of LSE’s thriving academic community in central London.
Our aim is to impact on socially meaningful challenges in business and policy worldwide.
We are proud to be rated #1 in the UK for research in business and management studies (REF 2014). Our research pushes the frontiers of our understanding of the world, developing cutting-edge insights for practitioners. We collaborate with businesses, third sector organisations and policymakers across the globe to bring about real world impact.
The LSE Department of Mathematics is internationally recognised for its teaching and research. Located within a world-class social science institution, the department aims to be a leading centre for Mathematics in the Social Sciences.The Department has more than doubled in size over the past few years, most notably with the addition of a strong new group working in financial mathematics and control theory. Other fields studied within the Department include: discrete mathematics and algorithms, mathematical game theory, and probability theory.The Department's growth trajectory reflects the increasing impact that mathematical theory and mathematical techniques are having on subjects such as economics and finance, and on many other areas of the Social Sciences.
On the teaching side, the Department offers a popular and successful BSc degree inMathematics and Economics. We launched a new BSc in Mathematics with Economicsin October 2010. At graduate level, we introduced the MSc in Applicable Mathematics in October 2004, and the programme is proving a great success. Our MSc in Financial Mathematics started in September 2008, and is proving extremely popular, judging by the very high numbers of applications.
We aim to:
The School has always been at the forefront of methodological development in the social sciences. With the exception of the departments of Statistics and Philosophy, where methodology is for some the main activity, this methodological expertise has generally been contained within specific substantive areas of research rather than being identifiable and accessible from outside these areas. In the case of statistics and philosophy, the expertise has also tended to be inaccessible to potential users from outside, because of its technical focus. Consequently the teaching and dissemination of methodological expertise has been available to students, and in many cases staff, primarily within their own departments.
The Department of Methodology is a national centre of excellence in methodology and the teaching of methodology. The Department was set up to coordinate and provide a focus for methodological activities at the School, in particular in the areas of graduate student (and, potentially, staff) training and of methodological research. The Department is an interdisciplinary group and its primary role is to facilitate collaboration between departments and to provide courses where appropriate. The Department is central to theLSE's Doctoral Training Centre.
There is a long history of philosophy at London School of Economics. Bertrand Russell was one of the School’s philosophical and financial founders, and lectured here various times over the course of his career.
The historic department of Philosophy, Logic & Scientific Method was founded in 1946 by Sir Karl Popper. Popper was later joined by Imre Lakatos in 1960; the building that the department now occupies now bears his name: the Lakatos building.
The Imre Lakatos Memorial Fund has made some resources about Lakatos available, including several audio clips of his lectures.
As from 1 July 2016, the Department of Social Psychology expanded to become the Department of Psychological and Behavioural Science (PBS).
The name change will showcase the Department’s new BSc programme, the BSc in Psychological and Behavioural Science (to be launched in 18/19), with British Psychology Society Accreditation.
It will also provide an appropriate home for our existing MSc programmes in Social and Cultural Psychology; the Psychology of Economic Life; Social and Public Communication; and Organisational and Social Psychology, as well as our thriving PhD programme.
The expanded department will also become a hub for the 50+ psychological and behavioural researchers in other disciplines across the LSE as well as a cutting-edge centre of expertise in its own right.
The Institute of Public Affairs unites government officials, corporations and the third sector with LSE’s world class faculty and student to shape policy-making debates and ideas. This is the home of LSE’s renowned teaching in public policy and administration.
We offer:
The Department of Social Policy is the longest established in the UK.
The Department prides itself in being able to offer teaching based on the highest quality empirical research in the field. In the 2014 Research Excellence Framework, the UK's nationwide assessment of research quality, impact and environment, which is undertaken every six to seven years, the Department was ranked first in the UK for world leading and internationally excellent research and was also awarded the joint highest marks for the non-academic impacts of its work. When adjusted to take account of the high proportion of staff submitted to REF, it is the number one UK Social Policy Department for overall research quality.
Department of Sociology has played a key role in establishing and developing the discipline since 1904. Today we remain committed to providing top quality teaching, and to research and scholarship which is leading the evolution of the social sciences into new intellectual areas and the study of the social problems and ethical dilemmas facing a cosmopolitan and fractured society.
QS World University Rankings 2016 puts the Department second in Europe and fourth in the world for sociology.
Department of Statistics at LSE has a distinguished history. Its roots can be traced back to the appointment of Sir Arthur Lyon Bowley, an alumnus of the University of Cambridge, at LSE in 1895. He was appointed Chair in Statistics in 1919, probably the first appointment of its kind in Britain.
Presidents of the Royal Statistical Society drawn from the Department of Statistics at LSE have been Arthur Lyon Bowley, Maurice Kendall, Roy D. G. Allen, Henry Wynn, Claus Moser, James Durbin and David J. Bartholomew.
The department has an international reputation for development of statistical methodology that has grown from its long history of active contributions to research and teaching in statistics for the social sciences.
We offer three undergraduate honours degree courses: BSc Actuarial Science, BSc Business Mathematics and Statistics and BSc Statistics with Finance. These courses enable students who have enjoyed maths at A-level to develop their skills in mathematics and statistics. BSc Actuarial Science can also lead to exemptions from the 100 series of the Institute of Actuaries examinations. Emphasis is given to areas with practical applications in commerce, insurance, finance and government.
Our taught MSc Statistics and MSc Statistics (Financial Statistics) offer specialist training in statistics applied to the social sciences, finance and econometrics. Our MSc Risk and Stochastics provides high-level training in probability theory and statistics for random processes with applications in the areas of insurance and finance and their interface. All three programmes can be taken as intensive full-time one year programmes or part-time over two years. We provide a thriving and co-operative research environment for research students.
We welcome MPhil/PhD applications from students with an excellent MSc qualification and an interest in time series analysis, stochastic modelling, financial mathematics, actuarial statistics, latent variable modelling, analysis of longitudinal and clustered data, nonresponse and measurement error and sample survey methods.
The London School of Economics was founded in 1895 by Beatrice and Sidney Webb, initially funded by a bequest of £20,000 from the estate of Henry Hunt Hutchinson. Hutchinson, a lawyer and member of the Fabian Society, left the money in trust, to be put "towards advancing its [The Fabian Society's] objects in any way they [the trustees] deem advisable". The five trustees were Sidney Webb, Edward Pease, Constance Hutchinson, William de Mattos and William Clark.
LSE records that the proposal to establish the school was conceived during a breakfast meeting on 4 August 1894, between the Webbs,Graham Wallas and George Bernard Shaw. The proposal was accepted by the trustees in February 1895 and LSE held its first classes in October of that year, in rooms at 9 John Street, Adelphi, in the City of Westminster.
The School joined the federal University of London in 1900, becoming the university's Faculty of Economics and awarding degrees of the University from 1902. 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; the building was opened in 1922.
The 1930s economic debate between LSE and Cambridge is well known in academic circles. 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.)
The dispute also concerned the question of the economist's role, and whether this should be as a detached expert or a practical adviser. LSE and Cambridge lawyers and economists worked jointly in the 1920s—for example, the London and Cambridge Economic Service—but the 1930s brought a return to the dispute as LSE and Cambridge argued over the solution to the economic depression.
LSE's Lionel Robbins and Friedrich Hayek, and Cambridge's John Maynard Keynes were chief figures in the intellectual disagreement between the institutions. The controversy widened from deflation versus demand management as a solution to the economic problems of the day, to broader conceptions of economics and macroeconomics. Robbins and Hayek's views were based on the Austrian School of Economics with its emphasis on free trade and anti-interventionism, while Keynes advanced a brand of economic theory now known as Keynesianism which advocates active policy responses by the public sector.
During World War II, the School decamped from London to the University of Cambridge, occupying buildings belonging to Peterhouse.
The School's arms, including its motto and beaver mascot, were adopted in February 1922, on the recommendation of a committee of twelve, including eight students, which was established to research the matter. The Latin motto, "Rerum cognoscere causas", is taken from Virgil's Georgics. Its English translation is "to Know the Causes of Things" and it was suggested by Professor Edwin Cannan. The beaver mascot was selected for its associations with "foresight, constructiveness and industrious behaviour".
LSE continues to have a wide impact within British society, through its relationships and influence in politics, business and law. The Guardian describes such influence 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: Mervyn King, was a former LSE professor. The chairman of the House of Commons education committee, Barry Sheerman, sits on its board of governors, along with Labour peer Lord (Frank) Judd. Also on the board are Tory MPs Virginia Bottomley and Richard Shepherd, as well as Lord Saatchi and Lady Howe.
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 Giddensand his predecessor, John Ashworth", and raises money from foreigner students' high fees, which are attracted by academic stars such asRichard Sennett.
Recently, the School has been active in opposing British government proposals to introduce compulsory ID cards, researching into the associated costs of the scheme, and shifting public and government opinion on the issue. The institution is also popular with politicians and MPs to launch new policy, legislation and manifesto pledges, prominently with the launch of the Liberal Democrats Manifesto Conference under Nick Clegg on 12 January 2008.
In the early 2010s, its academics have been at the forefront of both national and international government consultations, reviews and policy, including representation on the UK Airports Commission, Independent Police Commission, Migration Advisory Committee, UN Advisory Board on Water and Sanitation, London Finance Commission,HS2 Limited, the UK government's Infrastructure Commission and advising on Architecture and Urbanism for the London 2012 Olympics
It has ranked in the top four best global universities according to employers for the past five years. The vast majority of LSE students are engaged in employment or further study within six months of graduating and the School is listed first for employability in the 2012 Sunday Times Good University Guide. The most common sectors for LSE graduates to work in within six months of graduating are banking, finance and accountancy; development, NGOs and international organisations; consultancy; education; and central and local government. In addition, the average starting salary of graduates who have completed both undergraduate and graduate degrees with LSE is significantly higher than the overall national average salary with £28,100 (undergraduates) and £35,400 (graduates).
Craig Calhoun took up the post of Director in September 2012. Its previous Director, Judith Rees, is also chair of the school's Grantham Institute on Climate Change, an adviser to the World Bank as well as sitting on the UN Secretary General's Advisory Board on Water and Sanitation and the International Scientific Advisory Council (ISAC). She is also a former Convenor of the Department of Geography and Environment, and served as Deputy Director from 1998–2004.
In 2013, the Grimshaw International Relations Society was caught in a furore over a BBC Panorama documentary on North Korea, filmed inside the repressive regime, which had been sanctioned by high-level DPRK officials..The 'edutainment trip' caused international media attention, as a BBC journalist was posing as a professor from LSE covertly. There was debate as to where this put the student's lives in jeopardy in the repressive regime if a reporter had been exposed. The North Korea government made hostile threats towards the students and LSE, after the publicity, which forced an apology from the BBC.
Universities in the United Kingdom use a centralized system of undergraduate application: University and College Admissions Service (UCAS). It is used by both domestic and international students. Students have to register on the UCAS website before applying to the university. They will find all the necessary information about the application process on this website. Some graduate courses also require registration on this website, but in most cases students have to apply directly to the university. Some universities also accept undergraduate application through Common App (the information about it could be found on universities' websites).
Both undergraduate and graduate students may receive three types of responses from the university. The first one, “unconditional offer” means that you already reached all requirements and may be admitted to the university. The second one, “conditional offer” makes your admission possible if you fulfill some criteria – for example, have good grades on final exams. The third one, “unsuccessful application” means that you, unfortunately, could not be admitted to the university of you choice.
All universities require personal statement, which should include the reasons to study in the UK and the information about personal and professional goals of the student and a transcript, which includes grades received in high school or in the previous university.
Institutional Accreditation or Recognition - Privy Council
In the 2011–12 academic year there were 9,300 full-time students and around 700 part-time students at the school. Of these, approximately two-thirds came from outside the United Kingdom. LSE has a highly international student body, with over 155 countries represented. LSE had more countries represented by students than the UN.
Over half of LSE's students are postgraduates, an unusually high proportion in comparison with other British institutions. There is approximately an equal split between genders with 51% male and 49% female students. Alumni total over 160,000, covering over 190 countries with more than 80 active alumni groups.
The LSE Students' Union (LSESU) is affiliated to the National Union of Students and is responsible for campaigning and lobbying the School on behalf of students as well providing student support and the organisation and undertaking of entertainment events and student societies. It is often regarded as the most politically active in Britain – a reputation it has held since the well documented LSE student riots in 1966–67 and 1968–69, which made international headlines. In 2015, the School was awarded the top spot for student nightlife by The Guardian newspaper due in part to its central location and provision of over 200 societies, 40 sports clubs, a Raising and Giving (RAG) branch and a thriving media group. In 2013, the Union moved into a purpose-built new building – the Saw Swee Hock Student Centre on the Aldwych campus.
A weekly student newspaper The Beaver, is published each Tuesday during term time and is amongst the oldest student newspapers in the country. It sits alongside a radio station, Pulse! which has existed since 1999 and a television station LooSE Television since 2005. The Clare Market Review one of Britain's oldest student publications was revived in 2008 and has gone on to win many national awards. Over £100,000 is raised for charity each year through Raising and Giving, which was started in 1980 by then Student Union Entertainments Officer and former New Zealand MP Tim Barnett.
Sporting activity is coordinated by the LSE Athletics Union, which is a constituent of British Universities & Colleges Sport (BUCS). In distinction to the "blues" awarded for sporting excellence at Oxford and Cambridge, LSE's outstanding athletes are awarded "purples".
LSE owns or operates 11 halls of residence in and around central London and has agreements with a further three residences operated by urbanest. Together, these residences accommodate over 4,000 students.[148] In addition, there are also eight intercollegiate halls shared with other constituent colleges of the University of London, which accommodate approximately 25% of LSE's first-year undergraduate students.
The School guarantees accommodation for all first-year undergraduate students and many of the school's larger postgraduate population are also catered for, with some specific residences available for postgraduate living. Whilst none of the residences are located at the Aldwych campus, the closest, Grosvenor House is within a five-minute walk from the School in Covent Garden, whilst the farthest residences (Nutford and Butler's Wharf) are approximately forty-five minutes by Tube or Bus.
Each residence accommodates a mixture of students both home and international, male and female, and, usually, undergraduate and postgraduate. New undergraduate students (including General Course students) occupy approximately 36% of all spaces, with postgraduates taking approximately 56% and continuing students about 8% of places.
The largest LSE student residence, Bankside, opened in 1996 and accommodates 617 students across eight floors overlooking the River Thames and located behind the popular Tate Modern art gallery on the south bank of the River. The second-largest residence is based in High Holborn, was opened in 1995 and is approximately 10 minutes walk from the main campus. Other accommodation is located well for London's attractions and facilities – Butler's Wharf is situated next toTower Bridge, Rosebery Hall is located in the London Borough of Islington close to Sadler's Wells, and Carr-Saunders Hall, named after the LSE professor is approximately 5 minutes from Telecom Tower in the heart of Fitzrovia.
Since 2005, the school has opened three new residences to provide accommodation for all first-year students. Lilian Knowles, independently operated in Spitalfields, is home for approximately 360 students and opened in 2006. It is located in a converted Victorian night refuge; the remnants of which can still be seen on the outside facade. It is a common stop on Jack the Ripper tours as one of his victims is commonly believed to have been a one-time resident. Planning permission was sought to convert the Grade II listed Northumberland House, onNorthumberland Avenue into a new residence in June 2005, and the accommodation opened to students in October 2006. It was formerly aVictorian grand hotel and lately government offices.
The closest residence to the Aldwych campus is reserved for postgraduate students and is located on the eastern side of Drury Lane at the crossroads of Great Queen Street and Long Acre. Grosvenor House, converted from a Victorian office building, opened in September 2005. The residence is unique in that all of its 169 rooms are small, self-contained studios, with private toilet and shower facilities and a mini-kitchen.
There are also eight intercollegiate halls and some students are selected to live in International Students House, London.
The School houses a number of notable centres including the Centre for the Analysis of Social Exclusion, the Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy, the Centre for Macroeconomics, Centre for Economic Performance, the Financial Markets Group (founded by former Bank of England governor Sir Mervyn King), the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment (chaired by 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.
In late 2014, LSE hired Erik Berglöf, former Chief Economist and Special Advisor to the EBRD to establish a new Institute of Global Affairs with seven regional research centres focusing on Africa, East Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, the Middle East, South Asia, South East Asia and the United States. It is joined by the LSE IDEAS think tank, which in a global survey conducted by the University of Pennsylvania in 2015 was jointly ranked as world's second-best university think tanks for the third year running alongside the LSE Public Policy Group, after Harvard University's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.
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. 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.
LSE has academic partnerships in teaching and research with six universities – with Columbia University in New York City and University of California, Berkeley, in Asia withPeking University in Beijing and the National University of Singapore, in Africa with the University of Cape Town and Europe with Sciences Po in Paris
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 withPeking University, with graduates earning degrees from both institutions. The School also offers joint degrees for specific departments with various other universities includingFudan University in Shanghai, USC in Los Angeles and a Global Studies programme which is offered with a consortium of four European universities – Leipzig, Vienna, Roskildeand Wroclaw. It offers the TRIUM Global Executive MBA programme jointly with Stern School of Business of New York University and HEC School of Management, Paris. It is divided into six modules held in five international business locations over a 16-month period. LSE also offers a Dual Master of Public Administration (MPA) with Global Public Policy Network schools such as Sciences Po Paris, the Hertie School of Governance and National University of Singapore. The school also runs exchange programmes with the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, Fuqua School of Business, Kellogg School of Management, Stern School of Business and Yale School of Management as part of its MSc in International Management and an undergraduate student exchange programme with the University of California, Berkeley in Political Science. It is however distincly not part of the European Union-wide Erasmus Programme.
In addition, there are numerous research partnerships and agreements with both UK and American institutions including the University of California, Chicago, Duke, Harvard,Imperial College London, King's College London, NYU, Oxford, UCL and Yale.
The School is a member of the Association of Commonwealth Universities, the Association of Professional Schools of International Affairs, the European University Association, the G5, the Global Alliance in Management Education, the Russell Group and Universities UK, the 'Golden Triangle' of British universities.
The School's main library, the British Library of Political and Economic Science is located in the Lionel Robbins Building and contains over 4 million print volumes, 60,000 online journals and 29,000 electronic books.The Digital Library contains digitised material from LSE Library collections and also born-digital material that has been collected and preserved in digital formats. Founded in 1896, it is the world's largest social and political sciences library and the national social science library of the United Kingdom and Commonwealth. Its collections are recognised for their outstanding national and international status and hold 'Designation' status by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA). BLPES responds to around 7,500 visits from students and staff each day. In addition, it provides a specialist international research collection, serving over 12,000 registered external users each year.
The Shaw Library, housed in LSE's Founders Room in the Old Building contains the School's collection of fiction and general readings. It also hosts a weekly series of lunchtime music concerts and press launches and is the home of the Fabian Window which was unveiled byTony Blair in 2003.
In 2013, LSE purchased the Women's Library, Britain's main library and museum resource on women and the women's movement and a UNESCO classified resource fromLondon Metropolitan University, moving the resources and artefacts into a new purpose-built facility within the Lionel Robbins Building complete with its own reading room and exhibition space.
Several subject specific libraries also exist including the Seligman Library for Anthropology, the Himmelweit Library for Social Psychology, the Leverhulme Library for Statistics, the Robert McKenzie library for Sociology, the Michael Wise Library for Geography and the Gender Institute Library.
Additionally, students are permitted to use the libraries of any other University of London college, and the extensive facilities at Senate House Library, situated in Russell Square.
The original LSE Summer School was established in 1989 and has since expanded to offer over 70 three-week courses in accounting, finance, economics, English language, international relations, government, law and management each July and August.
In recent years, the School has expanded its summer schools both abroad and into executive education with the LSE-PKU Summer School in Beijing (run with Peking University, the LSE-UCT July School in Cape Town (run with the University of Cape Town) and the Executive Summer School at its London campus. In 2011, it also launched a Methods Summer Programme. Together these courses welcome over 5,000 participants from over 130 countries and some of the top colleges and universities around the world, as well as professionals from several multinational institutions. Participants are housed in LSE halls of residence, or their overseas equivalents and the Summer School provides a full social programme including guest lectures and receptions.
The iXXi Briefings are private discussions which are attended by 40 experts from within LSE and elsewhere and are chaired by Lord Desai. At the briefings speakers talk for 15 minutes before discussion is opened to all attendees. iXXi briefings provide an opportunity to for the LSE to exhibit its resources and engage with experts and prominent figures. The iXXi Briefings are run by LSE Enterprise.
