London School of Economics

London School of Economics and Political Science

Coat of arms
Motto	Latin: Rerum cognoscere causas
Motto in English	To understand the causes of things
Type	Public research university
Established	1895; 129 years ago (1895)
Endowment	£255.5 million (2024)[1]
Budget	£525.6 million (2023/24)[1]
Chair	Susan Liautaud[2]
Visitor	Lucy Powell (as Lord President of the Council ex officio)
Chancellor	The Princess Royal (as Chancellor of the University of London)
President and Vice-Chancellor	Larry Kramer
Academic staff	1,910 (2022/23)[3]
Administrative staff	2,520 (2022/23)[3]
Students	13,295 (2022/23)[4]
Undergraduates	5,950 (2022/23)[4]
Postgraduates	7,350 (2022/23)[4]
Location	London , England 51°30′50″N 0°07′00″W / 51.51389°N 0.11667°W / 51.51389; -0.11667
Campus	Urban
Newspaper	The Beaver
Colours	Purple, black and gold[5]
Affiliations	ACU CEMS EUA Russell Group University of London Universities UK CIVICA
Mascot	Beaver
Website	lse.ac.uk

The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) is a public research university in London, England, and a member institution of the University of London. The school specialises in the 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 established its first degree courses under the auspices of the university in 1901.^[6] LSE began awarding its degrees in its own name in 2008,^[7] prior to which it awarded degrees of the University of London. It became a university in its own right within the University of London in 2022.^[8]

LSE is located in the London Borough of Camden and Westminster, Central London, near the boundary between Covent Garden and Holborn. The area is historically known as Clare Market. LSE has more than 11,000 students, just under seventy per cent of whom come from outside the UK, and 3,300 staff.^[9] The university has the sixth-largest endowment of any university in the UK and in 2023/24, it had an income of £525.6 million of which £41.4 million was from research grants.^[1] Despite its name, the school is organised into 25 academic departments and institutes which conduct teaching and research across a range of pure and applied social sciences.^[9]

LSE is a member of the Russell Group, 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 LSE also forms part of CIVICA – The European University of Social Sciences.^[10] The 2025 Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide ranked the London School of Economics as the number one university in the United Kingdom and named it their University of the Year.^[11] In the 2021 Research Excellence Framework, the school had the third highest grade point average in the United Kingdom (joint with the University of Cambridge).^[12]

LSE alumni and faculty include 55 past or present heads of state or government and 20 Nobel laureates. As of 2024, 25 per cent of all 56 Nobel Memorial Prizes in Economics had been awarded, at least in part, to LSE alumni, current staff, or former staff.^[13] LSE alumni and faculty have also won 3 Nobel Peace Prizes and 2 Nobel Prizes in Literature.^[14][15] The university has educated the most billionaires (11) of any European university according to a 2014 global census of US dollar billionaires.^[16]