The grand
challenges blog

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Nation building successes and failures matter to the EU and OECD

Commentary Dominic Rohner Security

By Dominic Rohner, Professor of Economics, Faculty of Business and Economics (HEC Lausanne), University of Lausanne, and Research Fellow, the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) From...

February 1, 2024

Can NFTs Support Organizing in the Future of Work?

Research highlight Patrick Nicolas Tinguely & Yash Raj Shrestha Alternative futures

Emerging technologies are constantly evolving and shape how we organize work within organizations. Building upon design principles of decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), our Point of View article...

January 8, 2024

Water, climate change and digitalization: the role of university teaching in equipping future leaders to deliver on SDG 6

Commentary Guillaume Fery & Mark McCormick Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Water

On October 12th, Guillaume and Mark were invited to a Breakfast Research and Practice seminar hosted by the Research Center for Grand Challenges at HEC Lausanne. The aim was to share their experience and...

December 12, 2023

Unravelling the paradox: Green preferences sustain greenwashing

Research highlight Lukas von Flüe Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

The allure and deception of green labels We often hear that we as consumers have the responsibility and the power to support reaching the Sustainable Development Goals with our consumption decisions....

November 29, 2023

Private Equity: Greenwashing Galore

Research highlight Garen Markarian & Alexander Semionov Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Climate finance Sustainable Finance

We are awash with ESG slogans – companies often include a glorified caption of how they care about their employees, environment and our children’s future. This has reached a point where we are flooded...

October 17, 2023

Climate: The End of the Road for Current Solutions?

Commentary Duncan Pollard & Sébastien Houde Post-/ or degrowth Climate and sustainability Energy

The HEC Research Centre for Grand Challenges held a Practice and Research Seminar on 16th March 2023. Duncan Pollard and Sébastien Houde debated our current corporate and economic approaches to climate...

June 7, 2023

Enlightenment 2.0 - The unfinished legacy of Giordano Bruno

Commentary Alternative futures Post-/ or degrowth Guido Palazzo

Man is not at the center of the universe. In fact, the universe has no center. There are many suns, surrounded by many planets and on some of them there might even be life forms comparable to ours. This...

May 16, 2023

Reimagining Academia in the Face of Urgent Global Challenges

Research highlight Guido Palazzo & Quentin Gallea Education Grand challenges

The world is not in a good shape. When Rockström and colleagues defined the ecological crisis along nine different planetary boundaries – from global warming to the extinction of species in 2009, they...

April 20, 2023

The grandest challenge: Overcoming un-sustainability

Commentary Philipp Censkowsky Planetary boundaries Post-/ or degrowth Climate and sustainability

This is an appeal to conceive today’s grand societal challenges as interconnected problems of sustainability. The prime question asked is therefore how current un–sustainability can be overcome by...

April 3, 2023

Welcome to the Grand Challenges Blog @ HEC Lausanne!

Blog news Philipp Censkowsky, Arianna Pisciella & Robin Schimmelpfennig

“Grand challenges are formulations of global problems that can be plausibly addressed through coordinated and collaborative effort” (George et al. 2016) Contributing to this coordinated...

March 30, 2023