Can Academics Shape the World They Study? Law Professor Alberto Alemanno on Public Scholarship

As COP31 swings into action in Antalya, Turkey, Dr. Fernando J. Díaz López examines how climate commitments translate into protection for people and businesses. The lead author for the IPCC’s seventh assessment report and Executive Director for Climate at the Sustainability & Organizations Institute of HEC Paris discusses a problem at the heart of his research: how to gauge what an adaptation measure changes on the ground. The scientist and professor also explores the following issues:What can Europe learn from Global South innovations?Does adaptation to climate change actually protects people?And how can politicians connect immediate decisions with protection beyond their electoral term?Fernando also describes a potential global market in this domain: one estimate puts annual adaptation and resilience investment demand at up to $1.3 trillion by 2030. Who can deliver impactful solutions, and who benefits? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Once a paper is published, what purpose does a scholar’s research serve? Between teaching sessions at HEC Paris, EU law professor Alberto Alemanno shares with Daniel Brown his professional journey towards a more engaged approach linking research to the real world. Alberto's forthcoming edited book, Public Scholarship: A European Approach, brings together 20 researchers who work with the people affected by the issues they study - and accept the risks of speaking in public.The Breakthroughs exchange explores that approach in the context of EU policymaking. As the Jean Monnet Chair in European Union Law, Alberto questions the case for deregulation in the EU’s Omnibus proposals and the selective use of Mario Draghi’s competitiveness report. He also explains why he joined three other legal scholars in a policy paper which publicly challenges the European Commission’s position on trade with Israeli settlements.Exclusive comments from Irish politician Mary Lou McDonald enrich the exchange, while Alberto considers the role of businesses and investors in conflict resolution. Where does scholarship end and citizenship begin? And how do his students change his vision of the world we live in? Tune in to this hour-long discussion to find some answers... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Does improving people’s lives require ever-higher carbon emissions? François Gemenne, professor at HEC Paris and a lead author of the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report, joins Daniel Brown to discuss why climate disasters do not automatically produce action - and why presenting the transition as a burden can deepen climate fatigue. He explains the “Champagne Curve”, identified in his latest research: once countries reach a very high level of human development, additional carbon consumption no longer corresponds to greater well-being. Our Breakthroughs conversation explores the injustice at the heart of climate change, the outdated divide between developed and developing countries, the role of business schools and companies in “killing business as usual,” and why business leaders must treat climate change as a structural transformation of their operating environment. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this special Books episode of Breakthroughs, five HEC Paris academics share the works that nudged, shook or sharpened the way they think about research: Seungah Sarah Lee with Imagined Communities by Benedict Anderson; Olivier Darmouni with Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson; Quirin Fleckenstein with Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely; Michelangelo Rossi with Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman and The Power of Experiments by Michael Luca and Max Bazerman; and Brian Hill with Debt: The First 5,000 Years by David Graeber. From nationalism and public capacity to behavioral economics, experiments and the human stakes of exchange, the episode is a reminder that research sometimes begins when a book makes a familiar question feel strange again. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Universities are often seen as neutral places of learning. But are they becoming actors in their own right? In this episode of Breakthroughs, HEC Paris researcher Seungah Sarah Lee explores how geopolitics, student mobility, global rankings, and emerging South-South cooperation are reshaping higher education. Drawing on studies covering more than 500 universities across 89 countries, she discusses soft power, the dominance of the US model of financing, China's growing academic influence, the future geography of internationalization, and why the spread of university fundraising owes more to professional networks than to market forces alone. Could universities become one of the defining instruments of global influence in the twenty-first century? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Has there always been only two genders? Or have there been societies, including in the Western world, where additional genders were recognized? A recent study by Matteo Winkler shows that many cultures throughout history, including Western cultures, did not necessarily conceive of sex and gender as binary. This comes at a time when an Italian court dismissed a case demanding the recognition of one of its citizens as non-binary, saying that in the Italian legal system there is no sex or gender beyond male and female. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

AI may feel weightless, but Olivier Darmouni argues that its real-world costs are anything but virtual. In this episode of Breakthroughs, the HEC Paris professor explains when and where the boom in data centers could raise electricity prices in the future; and how these centers could reshape investment in power infrastructure and force Europe to think much harder about energy security. Olivier also reflects on his recent hearing at France’s National Assembly, the difference between productive finance and financial extraction, and why overcoming the financial barriers to sustainability means finding credible ways to crowd in private capital. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When credit markets seize up in crisis periods, most people still blame the banks. But new research suggests the bigger pullback may come from nonbanks like those in the syndicated loan market. These have grown fast but remain fragile, cutting lending harder in times of stress – with negative consequences on employment. That shift could reshape how we think about crises, jobs and financial resilience. HEC Assistant Professor in Finance Quirin Fleckenstein explores these issues as part of his research into macro-finance, financial intermediation, and corporate finance. Original research paper: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3629232 (open source), and the published article in the prestigious Review of Financial Studies (https://academic.oup.com/rfs/article/39/4/925/8114830) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The 98th Academy Awards are just days away, six weeks after the Academy listed the nominees. But what do Oscar nominations really do to moviegoers? According to Marketing professor Michelangelo Rossi, they don’t just guide what we watch, they can also raise expectations enough to change how much we enjoy a film. Michelangelo joins Breakthroughs to unpack his latest research, cosigned by Hi! PARIS academic Felix Schleff. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Marketing professor Michelangelo Rossi shares with Breakthroughs the research he and Hi! Paris academic Felix Schleff published on Oscar nominations and their impact on movie-goers’ expectations. On the eve of the 98th Academy Awards, Rossi describes the overlooked downside of such quality disclosures. He also shares his latest research on the impact that Europe’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) has had on consumers using Google Maps. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.