Eiffel Scholarship – Seventeen X students among the 2020 recipients

Seventeen engineering students from Ecole Polytechnique are among the recipients of Eiffel Scholarships awarded by the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs (MEAE). This places Ecole Polytechnique among the top French institutions for recipients in engineering sciences. Five of the scholarship recipients come from Brazil, five from Russia and two from Cambodia. The five remaining recipients are from Cameroon, China, Vietnam, Iran, and Lebanon.

 “Obtaining an Eiffel Scholarship gives me an additional motivation to continue my studies and compels me to make every effort to achieve my highest scientific goals,” said Pegah Khayatan (X19), one of the recipients and a graduate of Amirkabir University of Technology in Tehran. “X is so much more than a university, as defined in other countries. It is also a common culture that accelerates the development of behavioral and scientific competencies,” she pointed out.

Four recipients are from the class of X2019 and thirteen from X2020, bearing witness to the diversity of Ecole Polytechnique’s international recruitment. At present, each class of polytechniciens has approximately 420 French students and 120 international students. This approach goes hand-in-hand with the development of the School’s partnerships abroad. For example, Ecole Polytechnique, in partnership with Télécom Paris, Mines and ENSTA, has opened an engineering program with Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

The international dimension has long been central to École Polytechnique’s strategy, drawing on an extensive network of partner universities around the world.

The Eiffel Scholarship Program has been developed by the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs (MEAE) and is designed to enable French higher education institutions to attract the best foreign students to master's and doctoral degree programs. The selection criteria include the excellence of the candidates, as evidenced by their previous academic record and, at PhD level, the innovative nature of their research subject; the international policy of the applicant institution and its actions in the geographical area concerned; the excellence of the host unit and the MEAE’s cooperation and partnership policy, including the prioritization of certain countries for this program.

“The Eiffel Scholarship is certainly very important to me because it will allow me to benefit from studying at X under the best possible conditions. This first small success has also encouraged me to put more effort into my future studies,” explained Yuhan Xiong (X19), a graduate of Shanghai Jiao Tong - ParisTech Elite Institute of Technology (SPEIT). “The Ecole Polytechnique's tradition of excellence and its clearly-structured courses provide students with a sound scientific foundation. This program combining theoretical courses, projects and internships will allow me to improve my communication skills and acquire the multidisciplinary techniques and knowledge that I will require in my future career,” she added.

In 2020, 378 scholarships were awarded (320 for master’s students and 58 for PhDs) out of 1,630 applications evaluated, in the fields of law, economics-management-political science, and engineering sciences.

What makes these scholarships unusual is the fact that the applications are submitted by the institutions rather than the candidates themselves.