The Civil Engineering Institute of EPFL

The next decades will bring unprecedented challenges for civil engineers and meeting them requires scientific competence at the highest level.
Vue de dessous du pont Vasco da Gama à Lisbonne au Portugal sous un ciel bleu

Vasco da Gama bridge in Lisbon, Portugal (credit: Paulo Valdivieso, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=46459143)

Urban population growth, scarcity of resources and climate change will create situations where traditional civil-engineering practice is no longer appropriate. While civil engineers have strived to do “more with less” for centuries, they now need to do this proactively in challenging contexts of high environmental uncertainty and limited material availability. 

Our mission:

The mission of the Civil Engineering Institute at EPFL is to combine expertise across a broad range of disciplines with world-class experimental facilities to develop significant scientific results, advanced learning support and appropriate innovation and technology transfer for the next generation of engineers. These engineers shall either become specialists or be able to collaborate with specialists from EPFL and elsewhere to meet society’s needs through improving the quality of life, lowering environmental impact and reducing life-cycle costs.

Our core disciplines:

The Civil Engineering Institute at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne performs research in the core disciplines of Civil Engineering (structures and materials, transportation and networks, geosystems and natural resources), as well as research at the interface with environmental engineering (fluids) and at the interface with architecture (buildings physics).

Geosystems and natural resources
Transportation and networks
Civil engineering and ENAC

The research conducted in our laboratories and research groups fosters excellence in fundamental and applied research.

We offer exceptional experimental facilities at various scales including the ability to test large-scale structures in our experimental halls.

With the emergence of the EPFL Valais and EPFL Fribourg (Smart Living Lab) campuses, the Civil Engineering Institute is going through an exciting growth phase.

Contact us:

Dimitrios Lignos, Director of Civil Engineering Institute

Sophie Bauer, Administrative Assistant

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