Courses

The undergraduate, graduate and continuing education courses offered at Inalco allow students to gain:^[3]

• mastery of a language and a thorough knowledge of the corresponding civilization over a degree program;
• specific expertise to complement other qualifications.

These courses lead to career paths in international business, international relations, communication and intercultural training, language teaching and multilingual computing.

• Bachelor's degrees: courses by language and region that can include a professional specialization.
• Master's degrees: regional programs targeting a research discipline or professional direction.
• Doctorate: PhD research at Inalco's Doctoral School.
• Diplomas: certificates, introductory diplomas, language and civilization diplomas, professional master's degrees.

Success and failure

Compared to other French universities, many programs at INALCO show high failure rates, i.e. high proportions of students failing the course in their end-of-year exam (65% of success in the 3rd year, compared to 74% nation-wide).^[4][5] This is particularly true among students specializing in Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, Korean, Russian and Arabic historically the largest departments of INALCO.

As an example, here is a table with approximate student numbers, indicating rates of success and failure in the first, second and third year of the Department of Japanese Studies.

An explanation sometimes given is the difficulty of these courses, or the high level required by INALCO. A more likely cause is the absence of any entrance examination: any student can register in any course, regardless of their true motivation or academic level. But this is not the case of the Japanese Studies Department anymore for more than ten years 2015 (only around 300 of the 1200 to 1300 applicants are accepted to enter the cursus each year). Many students select a language out of a superficial interest in a country or culture, or due to individual connections, yet without the commitment to thoroughly learning those difficult languages. This issue is particularly acute for first and second year students; those who reach the third year are much more motivated, and thus show much higher rates of success.

Research

Research at Inalco combines area studies and academic fields. Researchers study languages and civilizations that are increasingly in the spotlight – Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and as far as the Arctic – and are central to the major issues of the 21st century. Fourteen research teams, often partnered with other research organizations, PhD programs, and a publishing service form the backbone of research at Inalco. Inalco also has a project management and knowledge transfer service.

The research teams, administration offices and doctoral school are housed in a building dedicated entirely to research, with access to a full range of support functions: assistance in preparing research proposals and grant applications, organizing scientific events, looking for partnerships and funding, publication support, internal funding, and communication.

• 270 faculty members
• 300 PhD students
• 14 research teams
• 100 scientific events per year