London School of Economics and Political Science

LSE was the brainchild 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 prominent members of the Fabian Society. In 1894 the founders decided to use a £20,000 bequest to open a specialist higher education institution; in her diary entry of September 21, 1894, Beatrice Webb wrote that Sidney’s vision was to found, “slowly and quietly,” a “London School of Economics and Political Science.”⁠[1][1][1][1]

The first students arrived in October 1895, when the School opened in three rooms at 9 John Adam Street near the Strand in central London, with 29-year-old economic historian William Hewins as its first Director; in its first year 300 students enrolled for courses including economics, statistics and political science. From the start LSE admitted both women and men and welcomed students from overseas, and classes were held in the morning and evening for working students. Its motto is “rerum cognoscere causas” (to know the causes of things), and its founding purpose was “the betterment of society.”⁠[1][1][1][1][1][1][2][2]

In 1896 the School moved to 10 Adelphi Terrace overlooking the Thames, and the same year founded its library, known from 1928 as the British Library of Political and Economic Science. In 1900 LSE joined the reformed University of London as its Faculty of Economics, and University of London degrees were first conferred on LSE students in 1902; that year its first building, Passmore Edwards Hall, built at Clare Market on land granted by London County Council with funding from the philanthropist John Passmore Edwards, opened. On the eve of the First World War the School had 1,681 students, including 583 women and 234 from overseas.⁠[1][1][1][1][1][1]

In 1919 William Beveridge became Director, beginning a period of rapid intellectual and physical growth supported by funding from the Rockefeller FoundationThe Rockefeller FoundationThe Rockefeller Foundation is a private philanthropic foundation headquartered in New York City. It was chartered by New York State legislation in 1913 with funding from Standard Oil founder John D. Rockefeller, with the mission “to promote the well-being of mankind throughout the world.” In its early years it funded global public health, medical education, and yellow fever vaccine research; in the mid-20th century it supported agricultural programs that came to be known as the “Green Revolution”; and in recent years it has focused its work on energy, health, food, and climate.Open the full entry; in 1920 King George V laid the foundation stone by the main entrance on Houghton Street. In July 1921 Lilian Knowles became the School’s first woman professor, and in October 1938 the economist Arthur Lewis was appointed assistant lecturer, becoming the School’s first black academic; he later won the Nobel Prize. In 1933 Beveridge was among the founders of the Academic Assistance Council, which helped German professors dismissed on racial or political grounds.⁠[1][1][1][1][1][1][1]

During the Second World War, LSE, under Director Alexander Carr-Saunders, was evacuated to Cambridge and hosted by Peterhouse, and for the first time women outnumbered men among its students; its Houghton Street buildings were occupied first by the Ministry of Economic Warfare and then the Ministry of Aviation. Lionel Robbins became Director of the Economic Section of the Offices of the War Cabinet in 1940 and played a major role at the 1944 Bretton Woods Conference, and former Director Beveridge’s Beveridge Report of 1942 became the basis of the post-war Labour government’s social reform legislation. The School returned to London in August 1945 and reopened to students on October 29, marking its 50th anniversary.⁠[1][1][1][1][1][1]

By 1951 the School had 2,200 regular students, 567 of them from outside the UK. In 1950 Richard Titmuss was appointed to the Chair of Social Administration, leading the development of the Department of Social Policy; the psychologist Hilde Himmelweit established the Department of Social Psychology in 1964; and in 1954 LSE sociologists produced a report on social mobility in Britain.⁠[1][1][1][1]

In 1967 Walter Adams, principal of the University College of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, was appointed Director. The Students’ Union opposed the appointment, which led to a period of unrest, numerous sit-ins and the closure of the School after clashes with the authorities over the installation of security gates. These actions ultimately secured student representation on School committees.⁠[1][1][1]

In the 1970s, economists with LSE connections won the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences four times: John Hicks in 1972, Friedrich Hayek in 1974, James Meade in 1977 and Arthur Lewis in 1979. In 1978 the Library moved into the former WHSmith headquarters, now the Lionel Robbins Building, giving staff and students direct access to its collections for the first time. In 1986 the University Grants Committee judged the majority of LSE’s research “outstanding.”⁠[1][1][1][1]

In the 1990s and 2000s, 12 LSE staff members or alumni received the Nobel Prize, including Colombian President Juan Manuel SantosJuan Manuel SantosJuan Manuel Santos is a Colombian politician who has been a journalist, minister of foreign trade, minister of finance and minister of defense, and was president of Colombia from 2010 to 2018. During his presidency he negotiated and signed a peace agreement with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) to end a civil war that had lasted more than 50 years, for which he received the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize; as of October 2026, he is chair of The Elders and a trustee of the Rockefeller Foundation.Open the full entry, who won the 2016 Peace Prize. In 2006 the School obtained the right to award its own degrees, conferring the first LSE degree in 2008; that year the New Academic Building designed by Grimshaw opened, renamed the Cheng Kin Ku Building in 2023.⁠[1][1][1][1]

After the Libyan uprising began in early 2011, LSE’s many links with the Gaddafi regime came under scrutiny: Gaddafi’s son Saif al-Islam Gaddafi studied for a PhD in philosophy at LSE from 2002 to 2008 and, on the day he received his doctorate, announced a £1.5 million donation to the School from the Gaddafi International Charity and Development Foundation; the School had also signed a £2.2 million contract to train Libyan civil servants. In March 2011, Director Howard Davies resigned after a British newspaper revealed his extensive links with Libya, and the School’s council commissioned former Lord Chief Justice Lord Woolf to investigate.⁠[3][4][4][4][4]

The 188-page Woolf report, released on November 30, 2011, found that failures of governance, management and communication meant the council was not fully informed of fears that the donation could have been funded by bribes from Western companies seeking Libyan contracts, and that Davies was ultimately responsible for that failure; no due diligence had been carried out before the relationship began, and no one at LSE was tracking all of its connections with the regime. It found that Saif received more help with his PhD than the School knew and had “duped” his supervisors, and that signing the donation agreement on the day he was awarded his degree “can only foster suspicions” that he had in effect purchased it. It judged the contract to train Libyan civil servants “clearly of merit” and made 15 recommendations, including the creation of an ethics committee.⁠[3][4][3][3][5][3][3][5][5][3][5]

Interim Director Judith Rees said Lord Woolf was “damning” about how the School handled the donation, committed LSE to implementing all 15 recommendations, said the report would help it move on from an “unhappy chapter,” and welcomed the finding that no staff member had acted other than in what they saw as the School’s best interests. Only £300,000 of the donation was ever paid, and it was used for scholarships for North African students.⁠[3][4][4][4][4]

On April 1, 2024, American legal scholar Larry Kramer, previously president of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation (2012–2024) and dean of Stanford Law School, took office as LSE’s President and Vice Chancellor.⁠[6][6][6]

In 2024, LSE alumni Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson shared the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences with Simon Johnson for work on how institutions shape national prosperity; in 2025, Philippe Aghion, a professor in LSE’s Department of Economics, shared the prize with Joel Mokyr and Peter Howitt for explaining innovation-driven economic growth. Over the same period, LSE was named University of the Year 2025 and ranked first in the UK for 2025 and 2026 by The Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide; 2025/26 was the School’s 130th academic year.⁠[7][7][7][7][2][1]

As of 2025, 21 LSE alumni or staff members had been awarded Nobel Prizes, two for literature, three for peace and 16 for economic sciences, the first being founder George Bernard Shaw, who won the 1925 Prize in Literature. The School says nearly 50 past or present world leaders have taught or studied there, including former Indian President K. R. Narayanan, former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, Finnish President Alexander Stubb, Barbadian Prime Minister Mia Mottley and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.⁠[7][7][8][8][8][8][8][8]

LSE is a member of the Russell Group in the UK and of CIVICA, the European University of Social Sciences; it is legally a company limited by guarantee and is led by its President and Vice Chancellor.⁠[2][2][9][2]

London School of Economics and Political Science: Official website: https://www.lse.ac.uk/ (opens in a new window).⁠[10]

X: Public account: https://x.com/LSEnews (opens in a new window)⁠[1]

LinkedInLinkedInLinkedIn is a social networking platform for professionals. It was founded in 2002 by Reid Hoffman and others, launched in 2003, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2011; after Microsoft acquired it for approximately $26.2 billion in 2016, it became a wholly owned Microsoft subsidiary. Its revenue comes from membership subscriptions, advertising, and recruitment solutions.Open the full entry: Public profile: https://www.linkedin.com/school/london-school-of-economics/ (opens in a new window)⁠[1]

YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is Google’s video-sharing and creator platform, founded in 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim and acquired by Google in 2006. Built around video uploading, viewing, and creator earnings, the platform has developed Shorts, YouTube Music, Premium, YouTube TV, and products for children, and is headquartered in San Bruno, California, United States.Open the full entry: Public channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/lsewebsite (opens in a new window)⁠[1]