A look back at the School of Research’s 2026–2027 academic year opening ceremony

On Thursday 3 September 2026, Sciences Po’s Graduate School welcomed its new students at its formal opening ceremony in the Jacques Chapsal lecture theatre. This opening event, led by Dean Dina Waked in the presence of the academic staff, aimed to outline the main priorities for the coming year, encourage discussion and remind students of the resources available to them.

Speech by Dina Waked, Dean of the School of Research

Dear students, colleagues and staff,

It is my privilege to welcome you for a new academic year at Sciences Po's School of Research.

I warmly congratulate all of you who are starting your degrees at the School of Research, whether you are pursuing a master's or a doctoral degree, you have come a long way in your quest for further research. I also want to welcome those returning for another year; it is always a pleasure to see you again.

This summer, in the reading and viewing I recommended to students of the school of research, I kept returning to two works that I want to start with today, because together they hold an image I want to carry through what I want to say.

The first is the film Destiny, by the Egyptian director Youssef Chahine, whose centennial we mark this year. Set in twelfth-century Córdoba, the film follows the philosopher Averroes, Ibn Rushd, as he defends Aristotelian rational thought against those who are fearful of his ideas and want his books burned.

The second is Radwa Ashour's novel Granada, one of the major achievements of modern Arabic literature. It follows a family across three generations in the Andalusia of the late fifteenth century. Early in the book, a bookseller named Abu Jaafar quietly moves his library out of the city before it can be burned, saving what he can, so that something of that world's thought and memory survives into the next generation.

Both stories, across different centuries and different forms, are ultimately about the same quiet act: someone deciding that an idea, a text, a way of thinking, is worth carrying forward, worth protecting, worth handing on.

That is the spirit I want to welcome you into today. A shared responsibility that researchers have always carried, in every era, sometimes in dramatic circumstances and sometimes in very ordinary ones: to keep knowledge alive.

1. On the responsibility of keeping knowledge alive

Research, at its heart, is an act of care for what we know and how we know it. Every generation of scholars inherits ideas, questions, and methods from those before them, and every generation has the job of carrying them forward, testing them, enriching them, sometimes correcting them, but never simply letting them disappear.

This matters because knowledge is fragile in ways that aren't always visible day to day. Ideas can be forgotten as easily as they can be forbidden. A question stops being asked. A body of scholarship falls out of fashion and out of syllabi. A perspective that once had a home in the university quietly loses its place. None of this requires a dramatic act of censorship; it can simply be the result of neglect, convenience, or fear of controversy.

I personally believe research is one of the places where societies keep their capacity to think seriously about themselves, where hard questions can still be asked, however uncomfortable the answers. Like Abu Jaafar with his books, part of what you are being trusted with, starting today, is the quiet responsibility of carrying certain kinds of thinking forward so they remain available to the people who come after you.

2. On critical spirit

Keeping knowledge alive doesn't mean preserving it unchanged, like a book sealed in a vault. It means engaging with it seriously enough to actually test it. A syllabus, a canon, a dataset, an accepted theory, an archive of history none of it is neutral. Every one of these things reflects choices about what counts as knowledge and whose work made the list. That is exactly why you cannot simply inherit what you are handed, whether it comes from a professor, a discipline's tradition, or an algorithm's confident summary. Ask why certain texts, certain voices, certain methods became central, and others didn't. Rely on facts, but double-check them as many are now generated by machines. Verify your sources, and then verify them again.

Whether you are in an archive, working through a dataset, or rereading a text everyone assumes has already said all it has to say: interrogate it, poke it, reassess it. Go back to the sources. Ground yourself in the material, not in the received wisdom about the material. That rigor is itself a responsibility and a commitment and it's how you make sure what you carry forward is worth carrying.

3. On writing

Averroës kept writing despite those that wanted him to stop. Abu Jaafar kept his books despite those that wanted them burned. In both stories, the survival of an idea depended on someone taking the trouble to record it, preserve it, and pass it on in their own hand. I think that act matters just as much today, even as, especially as, a machine can produce a fluent paragraph in seconds. Precisely because a machine can generate something correct and generic in an instant, it becomes more precious to write something that is genuinely yours: an argument built the hard way, a sentence that carries your voice, a narrative only you could tell because only you sat with the material, with your sources, long enough to find it.

Do not let the ease of the artificial make you forget the pleasure of the difficult.

Writing well, thinking on the page, discarding six or ten words before finding the right one. This is not a chore standing between you and your research, it is part of the research, and it may be its deepest and most private satisfaction.

Critical inquiry gives you the material and the courage to ask hard questions. Writing is how you make sure the answers are not lost. I hope you rediscover that pleasure over the years ahead, whatever tools exist alongside you.

A closing word

Sciences Po is a unique place to do this critical, rigorous, courageous work. Our school brings together master's and doctoral students spanning our five primary disciplines: economics, history, law, political science, and sociology – alongside a permanent faculty dedicated to Sciences Po being a research university. Use that breadth and cross over;  talk to colleagues in other disciplines. The real world does not respect the boundaries between them, and neither should your curiosity.

One last thing. Look around this room. The people near you today are not only your classmates, they are likely to be your colleagues and friends for the rest of your career: the people you call when you need a co-author, when you need to know if an idea holds up, when you need someone in your corner. Build those bonds now, deliberately. You will need each other in the years ahead, and research, at its best, is rarely done alone.

I wish you all courage, curiosity, and the determination to ask the hardest questions, pursuing rigorous research methods and the will to keep writing and saving books from being erased and forgotten like Chahine’s Averroes and Ashour’s Abu Jafaar.

Welcome to the School of Research.

Useful information

Academic integrity: the common framework in force at Sciences Po

Sciences Po is firmly committed to promoting ethics and scientific and academic integrity, which are the cornerstones of excellence in its research and teaching missions.

Sciences Po’s educational mission encourages its students to develop independent and critical thinking, intellectual honesty, and respect for copyright and image rights when using sources.

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Combating gender-based and sexual violence

Because gender-based and sexual violence has no place at Sciences Po, the institution has implemented a comprehensive policy ranging from prevention to the sanctioning of perpetrators, with a priority given to listening to and supporting victims.

If you have any questions or require support, please contact: referent.vss@sciencespo.fr or book an appointment online.

Combating discrimination

As discrimination constitutes a serious violation of human rights, the institution is committed to combating discrimination, thereby contributing to collective and individual well-being, inclusion and equality.

If you have any questions or require support, please contact: referent.lcd@sciencespo.fr

Disability & accessibility: support for students

If you have a temporary or permanent disability, or if you suffer from a disabling health condition, Sciences Po will ensure that your studies and your integration into student life run as smoothly as possible.

The Disability Support Unit is available to:

• take your needs into account;
• offer you specific accommodations;
• ensure the best possible accessibility to lectures and facilities;
• coordinate actions and information with the various Sciences Po departments;
• support you with the necessary procedures.

Contact: pole.handicap@sciencespo.fr - 01 45 49 51 19

Student Services Centre – 1st floor, 13 Rue de l’Université

By appointment, Monday to Friday from 9.30 am to 1 pm and from 2 pm to 5.30 pm.

Health

Sciences Po has a ‘Health Centre’ staffed by a range of professionals (doctor, nurse, psychologist, etc.), located at 13 rue de l’Université. It is open to all students; appointments can be booked via Doctolib.

In addition, several members of the School’s research team are trained in first aid.

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