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The École centrale de Lyon (ECL) is a research university in greater Lyon, France. Founded in 1857 by François Barthélemy Arlès-Dufour in response to the increasing industrialization of France, it is one of the oldest graduate schools in France. The university is part of the Grandes Écoles, a prestigious group of French institutions dedicated to engineering, scientific research, and business education. The current 45-acre (18 ha) campus opened in 1967 and is located in the city of Ecully.
The École centrale de Lyon is traditionally known for its research and education in applied science and engineering. It excels in the research fields of acoustics, biosciences and nanotechnology, and is continuously ranked in the top five Grandes Écoles for the quality of its engineering graduate programs. The school is well-reputed for educating and training highly skilled engineers through many specialized graduate programs with a strong emphasis on laboratory instruction. Students graduate with a degree known as the diplôme d'ingénieur, which is an academic title protected by the French government and equivalent to a Master of Science, or with a PhD upon completion of their doctoral studies.
The École centrale de Lyon has strong ties with top institutions in Europe including Imperial College London and Darmstadt University of Technology. The university is one of the founding members of the Ecoles Centrales Group network (with campuses in Paris, Nantes, Lille, Marseille, and Beijing). It is also a founding member of University of Lyon's center for Research and Higher Education, which has over 120,000 students. Thus, it shares many of its PhD programs with other institutions part of University of Lyon such as INSA Lyon, École Normale Supérieure de Lyon, and Claude Bernard University Lyon 1.