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Core Foundations

Last Updated On 29 September 2025

Marie-Hélène Baroux, President of ISAE-SUPAERO, presents the 10 foundations that make our Institute a world leader in higher education and research in aerospace engineering. At ISAE-SUPAERO, students, teachers-researchers, alumni and partners interact to develop innovative solutions to today's technological and industrial challenges. They help to position our Institute as a major player in the transition of the civil and military aerospace sector.

“ISAE-SUPAERO is the leading engineering school in the field of aeronautics and space, in particular through the ISAE Group, which brings together 9 French aerospace engineering schools and offers a wide range of programmes dedicated to the field (engineering, Master, Advanced Master, and doctorate).

Joining ISAE-SUPAERO means benefiting from a world-class education with research and innovation central to strategic sectors of the future.

We are committed to a sustainable future, with an in-depth transformation of our teaching and research to include climate and societal issues. We are convinced of the important role of engineers and scientists in building a stable and inclusive world.

Since 2020, we have been deploying a concrete strategy based on flagship projects of international scope, coordinating initiatives with academic players in Toulouse and placing our resources and results at the service of society and European sovereignty.

As a fervent advocate of diversity in the service of innovation and society, we are also taking proactive steps to welcome students from a wide range of social backgrounds by awarding grants and supporting young people of all genders in high schools.

ISAE-SUPAERO is under the authority of the French Ministry of Armed Forces and is also a partner of the Ecole Polytechnique, HEC, and Sciences Po Paris. We have connections with more than 100 prestigious universities worldwide. More than 40% of our 1,900 students on campus come from outside France, reflecting the global mosaic of aerospace enthusiasts across more than 60 different nationalities.“

Our motto underlines the commitment of every member of our educational community to accompany our students towards high levels of academic and professional excellence, with passion.

It reflects our ambition to educate top-level engineers and researchers capable of meeting the complex challenges of aeronautics, space, and advanced systems.

At the service of society, our mission is to educate engineers to the highest level in order to maintain the European aeronautics and space industry and research, both civil and defence, at the forefront of the world, by relying on our 3 pillars: education, research, and innovation.

Our raison d'être is enshrined in our contract of objectives and performance: ISAE-SUPAERO's raison d'être is to educate high-level scientific and humanistic engineers who are innovative and capable of mastering the complex challenges of tomorrow's world.

We are committed to this mission in order to keep the European aerospace industry and research, both civil and military, at the forefront of the world. In this way, we are contributing to French and European sovereignty and prosperity, as well as to the progress of humankind.

At ISAE-SUPAERO, we are committed to educating engineers and scientists of excellence, embodying a diversity that fosters innovation with values centred on initiative, respect, and responsibility.

Each graduate is prepared to meet the global challenges of tomorrow's world and to play a central role as an engineer, entrepreneur, or scientist, in innovating for a sustainable and sovereign society.

At ISAE-SUPAERO, we offer a wide range of programmes, both initial and continuing, to meet the major challenges of the future, particularly in the aerospace sector.

As Polytechnique's application school for the general engineering curriculum, our Institute has expanded its educational offerings to include specialised engineering programmes as well as programmes open to international students.

A range of face-to-face and digital executive education programmes enables professionals to specialise throughout their careers.

In six years, our Institute has doubled its research activities, developing a resolutely interdisciplinary approach focused on major societal issues.

This dynamic approach is underpinned by close collaboration with academic and scientific partners, both locally and internationally, to enhance the impact of our work. More than a third of our research activities are directly linked to sustainable aeronautics and space, and several theses are leading to major developments in the industry and in fundamental—civil or defence—research. ISAE-SUPAERO and ENAC are working on the creation of a joint research laboratory to consolidate a systemic approach to the aeronautics and space of tomorrow.

At ISAE-SUPAERO, innovation is at the heart of our education and research. Our Institute educates the innovators of tomorrow and supports the maturation of technologies developed in our research laboratories. On campus, we encourage our students, staff, and faculty to develop their entrepreneurial spirit and their ability to make things happen, thanks to practical education, methodological support, and an 800m² space dedicated to innovation, including a Digital Lab, a prototyping space, and a start-up incubator.

Our students benefit from personalised support to bring their projects to fruition, whether in technological development, applied research, or entrepreneurship. Thanks to the FabLab, they can experiment, invent, design, and build prototypes to bring their ideas to life. For our students and alumni who want to go further, the incubator provides the ideal setting to transform their concepts into start-ups and take on the technological challenges of tomorrow.

For more than 100 years, we have maintained a close relationship with the industrial world, enabling our students to develop skills in line with market needs.

At ISAE-SUPAERO, we are at the heart of Europe's aeronautics and space capital.

Our location facilitates close exchanges with companies in the sector, from large to small, as well as with the rich academic and research fabric of the Occitanie region.
Beyond this region, we are forging strong partnerships with academics and industry from all over the world based on our three pillars: education, research, and innovation.

At ISAE-SUPAERO, our students are truly open to the world. Every year, more than 40% of our students come from abroad from around sixty different countries. Our international reputation is illustrated by the agreements we have signed with more than 100 prestigious universities around the world for exchange programmes, as well as by our collaborative research projects with laboratories and organizations abroad, including MIT, ESA, and NASA. This diversity creates a unique environment conducive to exchange and innovation, and prepares students for international careers in all strategic and innovative sectors.

We have the honour of counting many pioneering and innovative engineers among our 26,000 alumni, such as Henri Coanda, creator of the first jet plane, and Henri Lefebvre, designer of Citroën's 2 CV and DS cars. Some great leaders such as Marcel Dassault (founder of Dassault Aviation) or Henri Ziegler (CEO of Aérospatiale and founder of Airbus Industries) built European aeronautics, while others like Guillaume Faury (CEO of Airbus) are piloting it today. Our many young alumni astronauts (Thomas Pesquet, Luca Parmitano, Samantha Cristoforetti, Sophie Adenot, Arnaud Prost, and Anthea Comellini) keep the European space dream alive. Finally, we are proud to have educated the heads of young, fast-growing companies such as Romain Moulin of Exotec and Benoît Lemaignan of Verkor, our first two French industrial unicorns; Eloa Guillotin of Beyond Aero, working to develop the 1^st hydrogen-powered electric aircraft; and Fabien Apper of U-Space. We hope that our future alumni will also transform the world in the long term.

Since 1968, ISAE-SUPAERO has been based in the heart of the European capital of aeronautics and space, the favourite city of French students between the Pyrenees, the Atlantic, and the Mediterranean. Our 19-hectare campus is a lively and welcoming place, with a student residence of around 1,000 rooms, a wide range of sports facilities, and around a hundred student, cultural, and technical clubs, encouraging an intense community life on site.

Our Institute also boasts cutting-edge, world-class research facilities, supporting academic and scientific excellence. Our learning centre, the Aérothèque, offers 2,500m²of space reserved for a vast collection of documents, as well as rooms for collaborative working and flexible spaces for meetings, workshops, exhibitions, and conferences.

An environment that is the envy of many!