Лондонгийн эдийн засаг, улс төрийн шинжлэх ухааны сургууль

The London School of Economics and Political Science, commonly known as the London School of Economics (LSE), is a public research university in London, England, and a member institution of the University of London. The school specialises in pure and applied social sciences.

Founded in 1895 by Fabian Society members Sidney Webb, Beatrice Webb, Graham Wallas and George Bernard Shaw, LSE joined the University of London in 1900 and offered its first degree programmes under the auspices of that university in 1901. In 2008, LSE began awarding degrees in its own name. LSE became a university in its own right within the University of London in 2022.

LSE is located in the London Borough of Camden and Westminster, Central London, near the boundary between Covent Garden and Holborn in the area historically known as Clare Market. As of 2023/24, LSE had under 13,000 students, with a majority enroled being postgraduate students and just under two thirds coming from outside the United Kingdom. The university has the sixth-largest endowment of any university in the UK and it had an income of £548.2 million in 2024/25, of which £39.2 million was from research grants.

LSE is a member of the Russell Group, the Association of Commonwealth Universities and the European University Association, and is typically considered part of the "golden triangle" of research universities in the south east of England. The British Library of Political and Economic Science, commonly referred to as "LSE Library", is the main library of the university, and one of the largest libraries in the world devoted to the economic and social sciences.

Since 1990, the London School of Economics has educated 24 prime ministers or presidents, the second highest number of any university in the United Kingdom. Since the school's founding in 1895, over 40 world leaders, 21 Nobel laureates, two presidents of the European Commission and three presidents of the International Court of Justice have taught or studied at LSE.

History

Origins

The London School of Economics and Political Science was founded in 1895 by Beatrice and Sidney Webb, Graham Wallas and George Bernard Shaw initially funded by a bequest of £20,000 from the estate of Henry Hunt Hutchinson. Hutchinson, a lawyer and member of the Fabian Society, left the money in trust, to be put "towards advancing its [The Fabian Society's] objects in any way they [the trustees] deem advisable". The five trustees were Sidney Webb, Edward Pease, Constance Hutchinson, W. S. de Mattos and William Clark.

LSE records that the proposal to establish the school was conceived during a breakfast meeting on 4 August 1894, between the Webbs, Louis Flood, and George Bernard Shaw. The proposal was accepted by the trustees in February 1895 and LSE held its first classes in October of that year, in rooms at 9 John Street, Adelphi, in the City of Westminster.

20th century

The school joined the federal University of London in 1900 and was recognised as a Faculty of Economics of the university. The University of London degrees of BSc (Econ) and DSc (Econ) were established in 1901, the first university degrees dedicated to the social sciences. Expanding rapidly over the following years, the school moved initially to the nearby 10 Adelphi Terrace, then to Clare Market and Houghton Street. The foundation stone of the Old Building, on Houghton Street, was laid by King George V in 1920; the building was opened in 1922.

The school's arms, including its motto and beaver mascot, were adopted in February 1922, on the recommendation of a committee of twelve, including eight students, which was established to research the matter. The Latin motto, rerum cognoscere causas, is taken from Virgil's Georgics. Its English translation is "to Know the Causes of Things" and it was suggested by Professor Edwin Cannan. The beaver mascot was selected for its associations with "foresight, constructiveness, and industrious behaviour".

The economic debate between the LSE and the University of Cambridge during the 1930s is a well-known chapter in academic circles. The rivalry between academic opinion at LSE and Cambridge goes back to the school's roots when LSE's Edwin Cannan (1861–1935), Professor of Economics, and Cambridge's Professor of Political Economy, Alfred Marshall (1842–1924), the leading economist of the day, argued about the bedrock matter of economics and whether the subject should be considered as an organic whole. (Marshall disapproved of LSE's separate listing of pure theory and its insistence on economic history.)

Campus and estate

Since 1902, LSE has been based at Clare Market and Houghton Street in Westminster. It is surrounded by a number of important institutions including the Royal Courts of Justice, all four Inns of Courts, Royal College of Surgeons, Sir John Soane's Museum, and the West End is immediately across Kingsway from campus, which also borders the City of London and is within walking distance to Trafalgar Square and the Houses of Parliament.

In 1920, King George V laid the foundation of the Old Building. The campus now occupies an almost continuous group of around 30 buildings between Kingsway and Aldwych. Alongside teaching and academic space, the institution owns 11 student halls of residence across London, a West End theatre (the Peacock), early years centre, NHS medical centre and extensive sports ground in Berrylands, south London. LSE operates the George IV public house and the students' union operates the Three Tuns bar. The school's campus is noted for its numerous public art installations, which include Richard Wilson's Square the Block, Michael Brown's Blue Rain, Christopher Le Brun's Desert Window, and Turner Prize-winner Mark Wallinger's The World Turned Upside Down.

Since the early 2000s, the campus has undergone an extensive refurbishment project and a major fund-raising "Campaign for LSE" raised over £100 million in what was one of the largest university fund-raising exercises outside North America. This process began with the £35 million renovation of the British Library of Political and Economic Science by Foster and Partners.

In 2003, LSE purchased the former Public Trustee building at 24 Kingsway and engaged Sir Nicholas Grimshaw to redesign it into an ultra-modern educational facility at a total cost of over £45 million – increasing the size of the campus by 120,000 square feet (11,000 m2). The New Academic Building opened for teaching in October 2008, with an official opening by Her Majesty the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh on 5 November 2008. In November 2009 the school purchased the adjacent Sardinia House to house three academic departments and the nearby Old White Horse public house, before acquiring the freehold of the grade-II listed Land Registry Building at 32 Lincoln's Inn Fields in October 2010, which was reopened in March 2013 by The Princess Royal as the new home for the Department of Economics, International Growth Centre and its associated economic research centres. In 2015, LSE brought its ownership of buildings on Lincoln's Inn Fields to six, with the purchase of 5 Lincoln's Inn Fields on the north side of the square, which has since been converted into faculty accommodation.

Organisation and administration

Governance

Although LSE is a member institution of the federal University of London, it is also a university in its own right and awards it own degrees.

LSE is incorporated under the Companies Act as a company limited by guarantee and is an exempt charity within the meaning of Schedule Two of the Charities Act 1993. The principal governance bodies of the LSE are: the LSE Council; the Court of Governors; the academic board; and the director and director's management team.

The LSE Council is responsible for strategy and its members are company directors of the school. It has specific responsibilities in relation to areas including the monitoring of institutional performance; finance and financial sustainability; audit arrangements; estate strategy; human resource and employment policy; health and safety; "educational character and mission", and student experience. The council is supported in carrying out its role by a number of committees that report directly to it.

The Court of Governors deals with certain constitutional matters and has pre-decision discussions on key policy issues and the involvement of individual governors in the school's activities. The court has the following formal powers: the appointment of members of the court, its subcommittees, and the council; election of the chair and vice chairs of the court and council and honorary fellows of the school; the amendment of the memorandum and articles of association; and the appointment of external auditors.

The academic board is LSE's principal academic body and considers all major issues of general policy affecting the academic life of the school and its development. It is chaired by the director, with staff and student membership, and is supported by its own structure of committees. The vice chair of the academic board serves as a non-director member of the council and makes a termly report to the council. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the Academic Board has moved online and has not yet returned to in-person meetings, changing the dynamic of engagement.

President and vice-chancellor

The president and vice-chancellor (titled director until 2022) is the head of LSE and its chief executive officer, responsible for executive management and leadership on academic issues. The vice-chancellor reports to and is accountable to the council. The vice-chancellor is also the accountable officer for the purposes of the Office for Students financial memorandum. The LSE's current vice-chancellor is Larry Kramer, who took office in April 2024.

The vice-chancellor is supported by four pro-vice-chancellors with designated portfolios (education; research; planning and resources; faculty development), the school secretary, the chief operating officer, the chief finance officer, and the chief philanthropy and global engagement officer.

Academic profile

Admissions

In 2025, the London School of Economics received 30,000 applications for roughly 1,900 undergraduate places or 16 applicants per place. All undergraduate applications, including international applications, are made through UCAS. The university is consistently designated as a 'high-tariff' institution by the Department for Education, with the average undergraduate entrant to the university in recent years amassing between 159–162 UCAS Tariff points in their top three pre-university qualifications – the equivalent of A*A*A at A-Level. Based on 2022/23 HESA entry standards data published in domestic league tables, which include a broad range of qualifications beyond the top three exam grades, the average student at the LSE achieved 187 points – the eighth highest in the country. The university gave offers of admission to roughly 26% of its undergraduate applicants in 2023, one of the lowest offer rates across the UK. BSc Economics is the most competitive undergraduate course at the LSE with over 4,000 applications for just over 200 places. LLB in Laws comes second with 2,600 applications for just over 170 places.

Prospective Postgraduate students applying to the LSE are required to have a first or upper second Class UK honours degree, or its foreign equivalent, for master's degrees, while direct entry to the MPhil/PhD programme requires a UK taught master's with merit, or foreign equivalent. Admission to the diploma requires a UK degree or equivalent plus relevant experience. The intake to applications ratio for postgraduate degree programmes is very competitive; the MSc Economic Policy for International Development had a ratio of 3.46% in 2024.

Programmes and degrees

As of 2024, the school offers over 40 undergraduate programmes, over 140 taught master's programmes, and research master's and PhD programmes. Subjects pioneered in Britain by LSE include accountancy and sociology, and the school also employed Britain's first full-time lecturer in economic history. Courses are split across more than thirty research centres and nineteen departments, plus a Language Centre. In partnership with the federal University of London, LSE oversees nine BSc programmes as the lead institution which designs the curriculum. Students who chose to study online experience the same unique academic experience as on-campus, they are considered a part of LSE community and they have a variety of options to interact with their university, such as the LSE general course. Since programmes are all within the social sciences, they closely resemble each other, and undergraduate students usually take at least one course module in a subject outside of their degree for their first and second years of study, promoting a broader education in the social sciences. At undergraduate level, some departments have as few as 90 students across the three years of study. Since September 2010, it has been compulsory for first year undergraduates to participate in LSE 100: Understanding the Causes of Things alongside normal studies.

Student life

Student body

In 2024/25, LSE's student body consisted of 12,950 students, composed of 5,785 undergraduates and 7,160 postgraduate students. In 2023/24, 8,225 students came from outside the United Kingdom (64% of the total student body). These were primarily postgraduate students, of which 5,540 (77% of all postgraduates) were from outside the United Kingdom. The undergraduate population was close to evenly split between students from the UK (53%) and international students (47%). The student body in 2024/25 was 57% female and 43% male.

Students' union

The LSE Students' Union (LSESU) is affiliated to the National Union of Students and is responsible for campaigning and lobbying the school on behalf of students as well providing student support and the organisation and undertaking of entertainment events and student societies. It is often regarded as the most politically active in Britain – a reputation it has held since the well documented LSE student riots in 1966–67 and 1968–69, which made international headlines. In 2015, the school was awarded the top spot for student nightlife by The Guardian newspaper due in part to its central location and provision of over 200 societies, 40 sports clubs, a Raising and Giving (RAG) branch and a thriving media group. In 2013, the union moved into a purpose-built new building – the Saw Swee Hock Student Centre on the Aldwych campus.

A weekly student newspaper The Beaver, is published each Tuesday during term time and is among the oldest student newspapers in the country. It sits alongside a radio station, Pulse! which has existed since 1999 and a television station LooSE Television since 2005. The Clare Market Review one of Britain's oldest student publications was revived in 2008. Over £150,000 is raised for charity each year through the RAG (Raising and Giving), the fundraising arm of the Students' Union, which was started in 1980 by then Student Union Entertainments Officer and former New Zealand MP Tim Barnett.

Sporting activity is coordinated by the LSE Athletics Union, which is a constituent of British Universities & Colleges Sport (BUCS).

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