London School of Economics

The London School of Economics and Political Science, often referred to as the London School of Economics or simply the LSE, is a specialist university and a constituent college of the federal University of London, located on Houghton Street in Central London, off the Aldwych and next to the Royal Courts of Justice.

LSE was founded in 1895 by Fabian Society members Sidney and Beatrice Webb, Graham Wallas, and George Bernard Shaw, with funding provided by private philanthropy, including a £20,000 bequest from Henry Hunt Hutchinson left to the Fabian Society. As an intellectual movement Fabians believe in the advancement of socialist causes by reformist rather than revolutionary means. The LSE was established based on the Fabian tradition with the aim of bettering society, and focused heavily on issues of poverty and inequality. The LSE's initial reputation was one of being a socialist-leaning institution. This has changed over time with the school's increasing focus on commerce related disciplines.

The school was founded with the initial intention of renewing the training of Britain's political and business elite, which seemed to be faltering due to inadequate teaching and research - the number of postgraduate students was dwarfed by those in other countries. A year before the founding, the British Association for the Advancement of Science pushed for the need to advance the systematic study of social sciences as well. In fact, Sidney and Beatrice Webb used the curriculum of Institut d'etudes politiques de Paris (best known as Sciences Po), which covered the full-range of the social sciences, as part of their inspiration for molding the LSE's educational purpose.^[1] LSE was opened in October 1895 at No. 9 John Street, Adelphi.

The school expanded rapidly and was moved along with the British Library of Political and Economic Science to No. 10 Adelphi Terrace after a year. The LSE was recognised as a Faculty of Economics within the University of London in 1900. The school begain enrolling students for bachelor degrees and doctorates in 1900, as it began to expand into other areas of social sciences, including international relations, history, philosophy and sociology. The school moved to its current site near the Aldwych - not far from Whitehall - in 1902. The Old Building, which remains a significant office and classroom building, was opened on Houghton Street in 1922. Over the years, the LSE has continued to expand around Houghton Street.

The current director of the school, Sir Howard Davies, was formerly head of the UK's Financial Services Authority and 40% of undergraduates at the LSE apply for careers in investment banking. The top 10 employers of LSE graduates are principally Accounting, Investment Banking, and Law firms [2].

Under a recent fund raising scheme, called the "Campaign for the LSE", which is seeking to raise 100 million pounds, the LSE has purchased another building, the New Academic Building. This will be redeveloped into a ultra-modern educational building, at a total cost of over 30 million pounds, and will increase the campus space by 120,000 square feet, in a highly crowded area of London. To date, just over 80 million pounds have been raised under the scheme including funds for various new Scholarships, including a 2 million pound fund for Cypriot students, set up by LSE alumnus and BSc Economics Graduate, Stelios Haji-loannou, founder of the EasyJet and Easy group companies.

The LSE is dedicated to the study of social sciences and has no natural science programs. It is regarded as a world leader in the study of economics, political science, law, international relations, international history, accounting and finance, philosophy of science, anthropology, sociology, and social policy. The standing of the LSE is indicated by the fierce competition for entry to all undergraduate degree programmes; on average, 11.4 candidates apply for every available place, making the School the most discerning institution in the UK [3]. Plans are afoot to increase the number of places offered, by expansion allowed by the purchase of additional faculty buildings [4].

The LSE offers over 120 MSc programmes and over 30 BSc programmes. Since these programmes are all within the social sciences they closely resemble each other and students often take courses in other departments. Many students also engage in a practice known as "auditing" where students regularly attend lecture series' by professors even though they are not formally enrolled in the class. The intake sizes of many of the masters programmes are unusually large for this level, and some cohorts contain well in excess of 100 students.

Courses are taught in over thirty research departments and twenty-one departments, including Accounting and Finance, Management, Anthropology, Economic History, Economics, The Development Studies Institute, the European Institute, Geography and Environment, Government, Industrial Relations, Information Systems, International History, International Relations, Law, Mathematics, Media and Communications, Operational Research, Philosophy Logic and Scientific Method, Social Policy, Social Psychology, Sociology, and Statistics.

The process of postgraduate admissions to the LSE is conducted on a rolling basis, as opposed to the more usual deadline system. Applications are accepted from mid-October and the evaluation process begins in mid-November. Applications are considered as they "roll in" and the candidate can receive one of three outcomes; outright acceptance and rejection, or placement on a waiting-list/interim decision. The admissions process continues without any set deadline until the number of places have been allocated. This process does give a higher probability of acceptance for early applications over late ones. Also, the consideration process ends once the places have been allocated, thus all applications in queue for consideration are returned with the notification that since the programme is full, neither an acceptance nor rejection can be given. The applications success rate for the programmes vary by their size, although most of the major courses have an intake of approximately 5%-10% of applicants[5]. Entrance standards are high for postgraduate students (particularly for those seeking external funding), who are usually expected to have (for taught Master's courses) a First Class or Upper Second Class UK honours degree, or its overseas equivalent [6].

There are nearly 7,000 full-time students and around 750 part-time students at the university. Of these, 38% come from the United Kingdom, 18% from other European Union countries, and 44% from more than 130 other countries, giving it the highest proportion of international students in the world.^[7]

52% of the student body are postgraduates, an unusually high proportion for most universities. Postgraduates are divided between Taught-Masters (MSc) and Research students (MPhil, PhD). Around 48% of all students are women.

London School of Economics coat of arms

The students' union lists over 160 societies catering to a very diverse range of interests. LSE students are also unusually heavy users of their campus library with borrowing rates four times the national average [8]

The LSE moved to its present day campus in 1902 at Clare Market and Houghton Street. In 1920 King George V laid the foundation stone of the Old Building, the principal building of the LSE. The LSE has gradually increased its ownership of adjacent buildings creating an almost continuous campus. The campus is just under 30 buildings, connections between which have been established on an ad-hoc basis with often confusing results. The floor levels of buildings do not always equate, leading to an individual being on a different "floor" after passing through a hallway. The campus also has a series of extension bridges created high on the upper floors to connect the upper of several buildings. The experience of crossing through the LSE has been likened to an M.C.Escher painting^{[citation needed]}.

The LSE campus went through a renewal under former Director Anthony Giddens (1996-2003) who likened many parts of the school to a "New Jersey Emergency Room"^{[citation needed]}. Recent projects include a renovation of the main library of the LSE. The British Library of Political and Economic Science (BLPES) is currently the world's largest library solely dedicated to the social sciences.^[9] Other buildings of note include the Peacock Theatre, which serves as a large lecture hall during the day, but is a west-end theatre house at night (complete with bar and box office).

The LSE, St Clement's Building

The LSE owns 10 residential accommodation facilities - consisting of both dormitories and apartments - across London, with two more due to open in 2006. Students also may live in one of eight intercollegiate facilities shared with other constituent colleges of the University of London. The LSE guarantees housing only to first-year undergraduate students, though postgraduates may also apply with a reasonable chance of success. None of the residences are at the Houghton Street campus - the closest is at Grosvenor House, within a 5 minute walk, while the farthest residences are 45 minutes away by tube or bus.

The LSE is also a public lecture venue organised by the LSE Events office. These weekly lectures are regularly given by prominant speakers, including ambassadors, authors, CEOs, and heads of state. All events are open to the public, although very popular lectures are often ticketed (for free) with priority tickets going to students. Past speakers have included Bill Clinton, Vicente Fox, Jack Welch, Kofi Annan, and Nelson Mandela.

The student newspaper is The Beaver, which recently celebrated its 50th anniversary. Other media outlets are PuLSE Radio, The Script, and LooSE, a student-operated TV station.

League tables published by British newspapers consistently rank the LSE inside the top four academic institutions in the United Kingdom. In the most recent national research assessment, the LSE came second after Cambridge for the quality of its research - and top if only the social sciences are taken into account^{[citation needed]}. Since the LSE only offers programmes in the Social Sciences, it often cites this last ranking in its promotional materials.

A Review of Teachers opinions conducted by the Times placed the LSE as the best University in the UK to study Economics.

The 2005 Times Higher Education Supplement [THES] World University Rankings ranked the LSE as follows:

• 2nd in the world for the social sciences
• 4th in the world according to recruiters' eyes
• 9th in the world for arts and humanities
• 11th in the world overall

The 2004 THES World University Rankings also ranked LSE 2nd in the world for the social sciences and 11th in the world overall, as well as 10th in the world for arts and humanities (the employers' rankings of world universities did not feature in the 2004 rankings).

IDEAS Economic Research Assessment January 2006

UK level - The most widespread and in depth analysis of research recently published is the January 2006 IDEAS assessment of worldwide Economic research institutions. Inside the UK this placed four LSE research departments in 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th places respectively, followed then by departments from Warwick, Cambridge, UCL and York further down the list.

Global Level - The same analysis at a Global level placed the London School of Economics and Political Science as the 3rd best University Economics research department in the world. In doing so, the department beat off competition from such institutions as MIT, Cambridge, Oxford, Berkeley, Yale, Columbia, the IMF and other LSE research departments.

Other Research Assessments

A Ranking published in the JEEA (Journal of European Economic Association) places the LSE 20th in the world, 2nd in Europe, and 1st in the UK. Another study by Coupe, places the LSE Economic department 15th in the world, and the number 1 institution outside the US.

EconPh.D conducted an economic research ranking broken down by subgroup and created an overall ranking, both of which included acknowledgement to co-authoring:

Yale University's analysis on the impact of Econometrics research from the top 100 Ph.D graduates, from institutions across the globe, placed the LSE as 1st in the world, and as the only institution with over 2000 pages of published research to its graduates' names.

The UK Research Assessment Exercise has rated the LSE Economics department as 5*A (the top grade) in the last two audits (1996 and 2001).

See List of London School of Economics people

Notable former students include an American President, a German Chancellor, the Danish Queen, three Canadian Prime Ministers, the Norwegian Crown-Prince, and several billionaires and celebrities. Specifically, LSE alumni and former staff include fourteen Nobel Prize winners in Economics, Peace and Literature, over thirty-eight heads of state or heads of government, including nine current heads of state or government, thirty current British Members of Parliament, and twenty-nine current peers of the House of Lords.

1. "LSE: A History of the London School of Economics and Political Science, 1895-1995", Oxford University Press, June 1, 1995.
2. "Determined Challengers Keep Heat On The Elite", The Times Higher Education Supplement, October 28, 2005
3. "Outstanding library and archive collections receive national recognition", MLA News, October 28, 2005
4. "1969: LSE closes over student clashes", BBC News
5. "JEEA Published Ranking", "Source: Table 3 of Pantelis Kalaitzidakis, Theofanis P. Mamuneas, and Thanasis Stengos (2003)"
6. "Top 200 universities: evolution over time", "ULB 6/17/02"
7. "EconPh.D Net Dec 1, 2005", "EconPh.D Net"
8. "Cowles, Yale", "Francisco Cribari-Neto, Mark J. Jensen and Álvaro A. Novo, "Research in Econometric Theory: Quantitative and Qualitative Productivity Rankings," Econometric Theory, 1999"
9. "HERO 1996", "UK Research Assessment Exercise 1996"
10. "HERO 2001", "UK Research Assessment Exercise 2001"
11. "IDEAS Research Assessment UK top 20% of Departments & World top 5% of Departments", "IDEAS, University of Connecticut, Top 20% UK institutions"

• LSE website
• British Library of Political and Economic Science (BLPES)
• LSE Students' Union website
• LSE & Columbia Alliance
• LSE STICERD