About LSE

Welcome to the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), one of the foremost social science universities in the world.

Introducing LSE

We are a world-leading university, dedicated to the social sciences

LSE is a global community of people and ideas in the heart of central London. We’re a specialist social sciences university, ranking third in the world in the QS subject rankings 2022 and as the top university in London in the Complete University Guide 2023.

LSE’s motto “rerum cognoscere causas” means “to know the causes of things”. It was chosen to support the School’s founding purpose, “for the betterment of society”.

Our ambition today is to be the leading social science university with the greatest global impact. Led by our President and Vice Chancellor, LSE alumna Minouche Shafik, our strategy LSE 2030 lays out the guiding principles that will help us achieve our goals and shape the world’s future.

Better keep yourself clean and bright; you are the window through which you must see the world

George Bernard Shaw, co-founder of LSE

Our history

From 1895 to today

LSE was the brain child of Sidney Webb, supported by his wife, the social investigator Beatrice Webb, the political scientist Graham Wallas, and the writer George Bernard Shaw.

All four were prominent members of the Fabian Society. In 1894, they decided to use a £20,000 bequest to open a specialist higher education institution.

The first students arrived in October 1895 and in 2020 we celebrated our 125th anniversary.

His vision is to found, slowly and quietly, a ‘London School of Economics and Political Science’ – a centre not only of lectures on special subjects, but an association of students who would be directed and supported in doing original work

Beatrice Webb’s diary, 21 September 1894

From the start, LSE was open to women and men and welcomed students from overseas. The School was committed to providing its students with “scientific training in methods of investigation and research”. The 1895 LSE Prospectus states that:

The special aim of the School will be, from the first, the study and investigation of the concrete facts of industrial life and the actual working of economic and political relations as they exist or have existed, in the United Kingdom and in foreign countries.