Sciences Po’s School of Management Places Impact at the Heart of Its Educational Strategy

Founded in 2016, the Sciences Po School of Management seeks to bring a heightened environmental and social conscience to the study of business. Its aim is to enable corporations to play a role in ecological and digital transition.

Both students and employers today are acutely aware of the importance of sustainability and corporate social responsibility and of the major societal shifts affecting employment practices (e.g. the rise of remote working, accelerating digitisation, etc.). It is in the light of all these developments that Sciences Po has taken the step of anchoring “impact” in the strategic concerns of its future managers.

Every year, the EMI educates more than 1,200 students who are committed to changing society through enterprise and entrepreneurship, to reinventing existing business models and to building a sustainable world. The academic year 2023-2024 will see the implementation of several major structural developments:

• The introduction of a range of core courses for first-year Master’s students across all programmes, exploring corporate environmental and social impact, and analysing the role of big data. Insights from within the social sciences will be used to shed light on the links between business, the environment and society.
• Four of the school’s master’s programmes have been updated to incorporate a focus on impact in all its dimensions, as well to cohere with a reoriented set of target sectors:
  • Finance and Strategy 
  • International Business and Sustainability 
  • Entrepreneurship, Design and Innovation  
  • HR and Sustainable Governance
• More broadly, each of the EMI’s nine Master’s programmes will offer courses exploring issues relating to the environment and ecological transition (e.g. impact assessment, carbon reporting, sustainable finance and green bonds, sustainable governance, etc.)

“I want to give Sciences Po a central role to play in advancing ecological and digital transition, by reorienting both our curriculum and our research. Given the multiple challenges that lie ahead of us, it will no longer be possible in the future to hold a managerial position without being trained in these key areas. The redesign of the EMI and its evolution into the School of Management and Impact is one feature of this broader policy, as is the introduction of a compulsory course on ecological transition for our first-year Master’s students. Over the course of the coming months, we will be significantly expanding the number of permanent faculty members working on issues in this field. I want Sciences Po to be at the vanguard of the changes.” Mathias Vicherat, President of Sciences Po.

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