Home>What Are Sciences Po's Researchers Working On?

22.11.2023

What Are Sciences Po's Researchers Working On?

With a firm focus on the major challenges facing society, research conducted at Sciences Po fuels and enhances public debate on issues.

More than 300 faculty members in the field of humanities and social sciences study transformations at work in the modern world and the challenges they represent. Our researchers study major issues such as public health, education, urban development, security, the environment and democracy all over the world. 

Research at Sciences Po contributes to knowledge and debate in five overarching disciplines : law, economics, history, political science, sociology.

Discover the topics that have kept our scientific community busy since the start of the academic year. Enjoy your reading.

Are we heading for all-out war? Can Israel defeat Hamas militarily, and vice versa? Will the far-right government of Benyamin Netanyahu open up to the left to form a cabinet of national unity, and if so, with what consequences?

Samy Cohen, an emeritus researcher at Sciences Po, President of the French Association for Israel Studies (AFEIL) and author of many books on the Middle East provides some answers.

Environmental exploitation for better preservation? Meet Pia Bailleul, who is joining our Centre for International Studies (CERI) for three years as part of one of the ten postdoctoral fellowships funded by the Bruno Latour Fund.

Have the mines destroyed the Wagyuu population belief system? Meet Inès Calvo Valenzuela, who is joining our Centre for International Studies (CERI) for three years as part of one of the ten postdoctoral fellowships funded by the Bruno Latour Fund.

If there is a Russian intellectual who has theorised the cultural ideology behind Putin’s Russia, it is Alexander Prokhanov. Juliette Faure, a doctoral student at our Centre for International Studies (CERI), has devoted her research to this complex man’s tortuous path.

As a founding member of CIVICA, the European University of Social Sciences, Sciences Po is welcoming 8 professors and researchers from the partner universities of Bocconi University (Italy), Central European University (Austria and Hungary), Hertie School (Germany) and IE University (Spain). 4 members of Sciences Po's permanent faculty will also benefit from this first edition of the CIVICA Short Visits Scheme and travel to Italy and Sweden.

South Africa, former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, post-communist Eastern Europe, post-dictatorship Latin America: since the 1990s, many countries have had to negotiate a transition from violent internal conflicts to often democratic peace.

In her latest book Comment sortir de la violence ? Enjeux et limites de la justice transitionnelle (How to end the violence? Stakes and limits of transitional justice, CNRS Editions, April 2022), Sandrine Lefranc, CNRS research director at the Centre for European and Comparative Studies, examines “transitional justice” initiatives by questioning their assumptions, implementation, and results.

Benevolence is rarely considered a component of international relations. However, it is real and cannot be dismissed as a naive approach. Frédéric Ramel argues that this benevolence, which is sometimes double-edged, contributes to the recognition of collective and individual particularities.

Receiving funding from the European Research Council is an indisputable mark of excellence for a researcher, so competitive is the selection process.  

Two young researchers from Sciences Po - Philipp Brandt and Zachary Van Winkle - have just received this international recognition by winning two Starting Grants, funding awarded to researchers at the start of their careers who have already produced excellent work and have the potential to distinguish themselves in the research world.

China’s poverty reduction reform targets rural areas, with a particular focus on village governance. Is it producing results? Three economists - including Moshe Buchinsky, a researcher at the Department of Economics - explore most of the dimensions of this question, down to the household level, in Xin County.

For the Chinese Communist Party, modernisation has long meant rooting out traditions. Considering them backward, modernisers fought them and erased them from the national narrative. Pierre Fuller uncovers the dynamics of this erasure.

Since its emergence in the public debate in the middle of the 19th century, the notion of laïcité has constantly been subject to reinterpretation, and even ideological confrontation. In order to clarify its various meanings, Lucien Jaume traces its sources of inspiration and inflection over time and space.

What is the purpose of public policy evaluations? How are they produced? How to familiarise the public with the issues at stake in order to strengthen democracy? Anne Revillard presents collective and transdisciplinary research with many takeaways.