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École normale supérieure (Paris)

The – PSL (; also known as ENS, , Ulm or ENS Paris) is a ''grande école'' in Paris, France. It is one of the constituent members of Paris Sciences et Lettres University (PSL). Its pupils, predominantly postgraduate students, generally have considerable freedom to structure their own curriculum and learning. Its pupils are generally referred to as ''normaliens'', while its alumni are generally referred to as ''archicubes''.

The school was founded in 1794 during the French Revolution, to provide homogeneous training of high-school teachers in France, but it later closed. The school was subsequently reestablished by Napoleon I as ''pensionnat normal'' from 1808 to 1822, before being recreated in 1826 and taking the name École normale in 1830. When institutes for primary teachers training called ''écoles normales'' were created in 1845, the word ''supérieure'' (meaning upper) was added to form the current name. In 1936, the institution started providing university-level education.

As a ''grande école'', the vast majority of the academic staff hosted at the ENS belong to external institutions such as one of the Parisian universities, the CNRS and the EHESS. Generalistic in its recruitment and organisation, the ENS is the only ''grande école'' in France to have departments of research in all the natural, social, and human sciences.

Its alumni include 14 Nobel Prize laureates, of which 8 are in Physics, 12 Fields Medalists, more than half the recipients of the CNRS's Gold Medal, several hundred members of the , as well as several French and foreign politicians and statespeople. Provided by Wikipedia