Welcome from the IEM Institute Director

EPFL is internationally recognized as a global leader in engineering. With the creation, on June 1^st, 2021, of our new Institute of Electrical and Micro Engineering (IEM), we aim at reaffirming and reinforcing this tradition of excellence in research and education in key areas of engineering.

Indeed, our Institute covers an extremely broad spectrum of domains, ranging from Energy to Robotics and from Micro- and Nano-technologies to Artificial Intelligence.  By offering a broad base of complementary technologies and laboratories, the Institute aims to attract the best students, researchers and faculty to EPFL.

More precisely, the Institute covers the following major technical fields:

• Electronic Circuits and Devices,
• Micro-manufacturing and Micro- and Nano-technologies,
• Robotics,
• IoT, Computer & Communication Engineering,
• Optics, Photonics and wave engineering,
• Machine learning, Information Science and Systems,
• Power and Energy.

Electrical and Micro-engineering are strongly multidisciplinary fields which require competences in a broad range of disciplines including physics, chemistry, biology, optics, material science, mechanics, robotics, electronics, manufacturing and information technology. We are thus offering a formidable playground for both research and education.

Installed on three sites (EPFL main campus in Lausanne, Microcity in Neuchâtel and Campus Biotech in Geneva), our institute offers a unique and unified entry door to those domains. Electronics and micro-technologies are enablers for many industrial products, from mobile telephones/tablets to robots and vehicles. Computer, communication and optical engineering provides us with the enabling components to process and transmit information, thus shaping the interaction of people all over the world. These technologies find an embodiment also in the ubiquitous Internet of Things (IoT), while data science provides us with a comprehensive framework for information technologies. Energy generation and distribution through smart grids is a key technology to meet our unprecedented demand for electrical power in a sustainable manner.

With two Sections in charge of education (Electrical Engineering and Micro-Engineering), offering five master programs (Electrical Engineering, Micro-Engineering, Robotics, Energy Science and Technology as well as the international masters degree in Micro- and Nanotechnologies for Integrated Systems), we offer instruction and research advising by world-renowned professors to incoming students. Our graduates are highly sought after by industry and academia world-wide, because of the specific strength of our instruction within the leading engineering school in Europe.

Finally, our multi-cultural faculty is renowned for its scientific and technical achievements and is always open to discussing new ideas with students, researchers and industrial actors, to fulfil our three important missions: cutting-edge research, world-class education and dedicated tech transfer and services to local and international industry.

Prof. Jean-Philippe Thiran
Director of the Institute of Electrical and Micro Engineering