Sustainability sciences
Bachelor
Overview
PSL is introducing an innovative new interdisciplinary program for future high school graduates: a three-year undergraduate curriculum based on the challenges of sustainability.
PSL’s new undergraduate degree in sustainability sciences is designed to produce students who can examine the challenges posed by sustainable development in all their complexity, from the various scientific problems they raise to their political, social and cultural implications and potential technological solutions. The aim is not to produce experts in sustainable development at the undergraduate level, but rather students who have acquired the necessary mindset to tackle those challenges and who will pursue graduate-level studies at top universities in France or abroad, while maintaining the intellectual habits they acquired as undergraduates.
Learning outcome
Designed in close connection with research under way at PSL laboratories, this unique undergraduate program is based on a comprehensive approach that necessarily encompasses a wide range of disciplines, with the aim of training future generations in the sustainability challenges. It is modeled on the PSL undergraduate curriculum: educational excellence and gradual specialization over three years, with a solid multidisciplinary foundation.
Offering veritable training for the mind, the program is structured around six principal areas:
- Scientific teaching based on current PSL research and organized around a multidisciplinary core curriculum and two majors: Environmental Sciences and Economics and Social Sciences.
- Project-mode teaching that is interdisciplinary and team-based, along with internships and practical case studies presented in part by public and private organizations, to give students an interdisciplinary perspective on the broad issues related to sustainability.
- Development of behavioral skills (creativity, adaptability, community-mindedness, motivation, communication, reasoning, etc.).
- Development of professional know-how (project management, impact analysis, digital skills, linguistic and intercultural skills, etc.).
- An annual series of lectures presented by researchers and others who are actively involved in sustainable development issues and open to a broader student body.
- Student participation in projects connected with sustainability challenges in the form of mandatory projects or internships.
The share of the teaching given in English will increase over the course of the three-year curriculum.
Diploma issued: bachelor's degree delivered by Université PSL.
Structure
First year
At the end of the 3 years of training, students will have acquired the following knowledge and skills, enabling them to understand the diversity and scientific complexity of sustainable development issues:
1. A solid pluridisciplinary core curriculum
The program will give students all the scientific knowledge necessary to understand and master major issues of sustainable development. The disciplines taught are the following :
- Natural and environmental sciences: Earth system sciences, physics, chemistry, biology, engineering
- Economics and social sciences: major economic principles, micro and macroeconomics, economics of sustainable development and natural resources, anthropology, psychology, governance of the commons and environmental law.
- Mathematics and data sciences: mathematical tools, statistics and programming.
2. An interdisciplinary view :
The strength of this program is that it considers the challenges of sustainable development at the crossroads of different disciplines. Specific modules have been built around this guiding idea of the program:
- In the first year, a module will be dedicated to the major challenges of Sustainable Development. Its objective is to analyze a certain number of issues from an interdisciplinary perspective: climate change, human health, national and global inequalities, poverty and migratory flows, ecosystems and biodiversity, depletion of natural resources, etc.
- A series of conferences will be proposed with speakers from the scientific, economic and institutional worlds related to positive impact, at the international level.
3. Know-how
During the previous projects and modules, emphasis will be placed on professional know-how.
4. Soft skills
The acquisition of behavioral skills will be developed within the framework of projects and courses. Support will be offered in the construction of personal, academic and professional projects.
The program aims to provide students with the following skills: teamwork, oral and written communication, creativity, rhetoric, argumentation, negotiation, emotional intelligence, adaptability, motivation.
The teaching will be bilingual (English/French) with a progressive part over the 3 years of teaching in English (recommended English level B2 & French level C1).
Costs
Tuition
HK$1,419.65
(international)
HK$1,419.65
(home)
Funding
Admissions
Qualifications
Students are admitted to this program on the basis of an application and interview, using criteria such as academic performance, level of commitment and motivation.
Our admissions process prioritizes diverse student backgrounds and experience, directly in line with Université PSL’s proactive equal opportunity policy.
Backed by the quality of the student advisory services and the efficacy of the support services offered (scholarships, housing, etc.), the curriculum will give students the opportunity to discover and capitalize on their specific abilities – a primary condition for academic and professional success.
Thirty candidates from a wide variety of backgrounds will be selected to comprise the inaugural class.
Language requirements
TCF
C1
CEFR
B2