Toulouse: Sciences Po’s big move to the Manufacture des Tabacs
The Institute of Political Studies of Toulouse (IEP), created in 1948, has taken its ease in its new premises at the Manufacture des Tabacs, which are more spacious and accessible to all. A page turns.
It is a historical page which is turning for the Institute of political studies (IEP), Sciences Po Toulouse, which had settled, in 1956 (twelve years after its creation with Paris, Lyon and Bordeaux), in the building in rue des Puits-Creusés opposite Toulouse 1 Capitole University with which the IEP is associated.
On January 3, the thousand and a half students of the Simone Veil promotion will return to the new school premises at the Manufacture des tabacs, Allée de Brienne, left free by the Toulouse school of economics (TSE) of Nobel Prize in Economics Jean Tirole.
“Finally, the end of a sea serpent”, sighs the new director of Sciences Po Toulouse Eric Darras, appointed last September to replace Olivier Brossard who will resume, in September 2022, his post of professor of economics.
“We unpack the boxes”
“For the time being, we are still unpacking the boxes at the Manufacture,” points out the associate professor in political science who has held all the posts at the IEP. The story of this move is the culmination of twenty years of disappointed hope, a chaotic story in Toulouse. At the start, we bought a building from EDF Bazacle, but when Jean-Luc Moudenc was elected mayor of Toulouse after Pierre Cohen, he decided to cancel the building permit under pressure from residents ”.
For the IEP, the move is “an event”, especially since the school will celebrate its 75 years of existence in 2023, after having invested 2.8 million euros on “our own funds”, indicates Eric Darras . In total, the installation costs nearly 6 million euros (the Region having contributed 3 million euros).
A future campus in Toulouse?
“Finally, we have premises that will allow us to ensure the digital and ecological transition, access to disabled people and above all to welcome the outside public for conferences and congresses. Moreover, the school is preparing to host, in spring 2023, the Sciences Po European Congress for its 75th anniversary.
“We will welcome 600 people from all over the world”. But barely installed in three of the four buildings of the Tobacco Factory over more than 6,000 m2, the IEP sees bigger.
“We want to move upmarket, continues the director of Sciences Po. Toulouse is still the second university city in France and Sciences Po must be up to the task. We could accommodate up to 2,000 students, and we are already looking to invest in a new real estate project, a campus in addition to the Manufacture des tabacs. If it is not in Toulouse, it will be elsewhere. “
Welcoming promotions of 200 students on average, Sciences Po wishes to increase its capacity up to “300 students per promotion”, hopes its director who notes “that there are not enough places in Toulouse”. The Institute, which wishes to stay in tune with the major debates that animate the country, is organizing conferences around the 2022 presidency, open to the general public.
Local and national personalities who left their mark on the school
Many personalities from the political and economic world, local or national, have passed through the benches of the IEP Toulouse created in 1948. We can notably quote the deputy mayor of Toulouse and former deputy LR Laurence Arribagé, the designer Céline Charlès , the engineer and former CEO of Axa France Jacques de Peretti or Claude Jorda, among others president of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. But also the economist Bernard Maris, assassinated during the Charlie Hebdo attacks of 2015. Since 2018, the institute has been hosting the Toulouse branch of the Unesco Bernard Maris “Economy and Society” Chair, born from the school’s spouse, from the ALLISS association and the Maison des Sciences de l’Homme Foundation in Paris (FMSH). Funded by the Occitanie Regional Council, the Haute-Garonne Departmental Council and the City of Paris, it welcomes researchers from all over the world every year.