BREAKTHROUGHS

Hosted by HEC Paris

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Oct 2026

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Grasp today’s economic, social and business issues with research and analysis brought to you by our HEC Paris Business School Professors. Widen your perspectives with recognized experts from different disciplines through a series of talks. Expanding knowledge, Enhancing responsibility: this is our engagement to our podcast listeners. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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October 19, 20261 hr 2 min

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

Once a paper is published, what purpose does a scholar’s research serve? Between teaching sessions at HEC Paris, EU law professor Alberto Alemanno tells Daniel Brown describes his professional journey towards a more engaged approach linking research to the real world. His forthcoming edited book, Public Scholarship: A European Approach, gathers 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 from within 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? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

September 14, 202637 min

Champagne Curve Shows More Consumption Does Not Improve Lives

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.

July 3, 202627 min

Breakthroughs Books Episode

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.

June 19, 202646 min

Could Universities Become the New Face of Soft Power?

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.

June 3, 202643 min

Yes, There Are More Sexes than Male and Female, Claims Study

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.

April 24, 202658 min

Top Finance Researcher Shows Why AI’s Hidden Bill Is About to Hit Everyone

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.

March 26, 202627 min

Have Banks Outsourced Financial Fragility?

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.

March 11, 20269 min

How Oscar Nominations Influence Our Choices - SHORT PODCAST

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.

February 17, 202632 min

How Platform Architecture and Oscar Nominations Influence Our Choices

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.

January 22, 202611 min

SHORT BREAKTHROUGHS: Digital Scorecards to Improve Sustainability

What if we put standardized barcodes on products we buy which inform us of their sustainability, supply chain, human rights records, etc? That’s the proposal of HEC & CNRS researcher Brian Hill. In his recent policy paper , he maps out an efficient way of shifting disclosure rules from companies to products - in the name of sustainability. This is a timely exchange, coming as it does as Europe reached an agreement last month to simplify sustainability reporting and due diligence requirements. Could Brian's digital, standardized scorecard be the key to filling in information and data gaps in this drive for smart product-level disclosure Europe should be aiming for? This ten-minute compact version of our monthly podcast discusses the essential points of his breakthrough research. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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