It educates undergraduate and graduate students in physics, chemistry and biology and conducts high-level research in those fields.

Two thirds of the students enter the school following a competitive examination (concours X-ESPCI-ENS) following at least two years of Classes Préparatoires.

From 1880 on, Pierre and Jacques Curie started a serie of research on crystal electrical properties that led to the piezoelectricity discovery.

After numerous experiments in the ESPCI laboratories, she discovered that pitchblende was 4 times more radioactive than uranium or thorium.

In 1976, Pierre-Gilles de Gennes (Nobel Prize 1991) became Director of the school and remained in this position until his retirement in 2002.

In 2015, the city of Paris announced a major renovation plan, in order to modernize the buildings and laboratories of the school.

The quality of the education at ESPCI enables its students to work in any industrial sector (telecommunication, computing, chemistry, pharmacology, biology, and other fields), mostly in Research and Development (47% in R&D, 10% in production, 10% in consultancy, 5% in environmental work, 3% in teaching, 3% in computing, 22% in other fields such as marketing or management).

The primary mode of admission (60 out of 90 students every year) is a competitive examination open to candidates enrolled in the PC (Physics-Chemistry) section of the Preparatory Classes to the Grandes écoles.