Economic, Social and Management Sciences  –  SESG

President: Cécile Blatrix
Vice-Presidents: Sophie Devienne, Michel Nakhla and Emmanuel Kessous 
Administrative and Finance Manager: Maryline Sandelis

The strategic value of economic, social, and management sciences is now recognized by all schools devoted to educating future engineering graduates. 

The Economic, Social and Management Sciences (SESG) Department brings together a broad range of subjects and oversees corresponding educational programs and research: Comparative Agriculture, Economy, Law, Management, Political Science, and Sociology. The overarching objective of the Department is to provide future graduates with theoretical, methodological, and applied knowledge, along with know-how that is now crucial to work as an engineer within AgroParisTech’s areas of expertise. 

Five strategic focus area structure teaching and research activities in the SESG Department:  

• Transforming Agriculture and Reshaping Industry  

• Agricultural Policy, Environmental and Natural Resource Economics  

• Regulatory Instruments, Management Tools, Resource and Business Governance  

• Socioecological Transition, Sustainable Food Consumption, and Business  

• Review, Consultation, Territories, and Environmental Strategies  

The SESG Department includes 34 faculty members, 21 engineers, and 12 people in charge of educational, administrative, and management duties.²

The department coordinates six 3rd-year majors from the Engineering curriculum (+1 jointly coordinated major). Additionally, it coordinates or jointly coordinates four master’s degree programs and many courses of study. 

Department staff is involved in education across all AgroParisTech campuses. 

Faculty and research staff in the SESG Department are highly involved in the institution’s chairs, including:  

• the “Prospective Modeling for Sustainable Development” Chair sponsored by Total, EDF, Renault, Schneider Electric, and Ademe;  
• the “Ecological Accounting” Chair sponsored by the Ministry of Ecology, LVMH, the Rocher Group, the French National Association of Chartered Accountants, CDC Recherche, CDC Biodiversité, Compta Durable accountancy firm, Vertigo Lab, Dame A La Licorne    
• the InterActions Chair, sponsored by the French National Regional Natural Park Federation, RESOLIS, Rameau, the Centre Interdisciplinaire en Technologie Agroalimentaire in Aragon, and Fondation Avril.  
• the CoPack Chair, sponsored by Ania, Bio Plastiques Club, EuraMaterials, Syctom, GRET, Aria Île-de-France, Leko, Linkup Factory, Labo de l’Economie Sociale et Solidaire, Polybioaid, STEF, and Veolia.  
• the Responsible Management and Entrepreneurship Chair from the “Entrepreneurship” Labex, which belongs to AgroParisTech. 

• Compared Agriculture and Agricultural Development
• DLAT: Local Development and Land Use  
• EGA: General and Applied Economics 
• EGE: Economics and Business Management 
• GIPE: Industrial Economics, Public Management, and Innovation 
• G-ENV: Environmental Management 
• GVSP: Management of Living Resources and Heritage Strategies  
• Sociology 

Faculty and research staff are affiliated with a broad range of research units: 

BETA Joint Research Unit (Nancy). INRA/AgroParisTech’s former Laboratory of Forest Economics in Nancy is now part of BETA (Bureau of Theoretical and Applied Economics). It is coordinated by the CNRS, the University of Lorraine, AgroParisTech, INRAE, and the University of Strasbourg. Research conducted by SESG’s faculty and research staff focuses on forest and wood economics, including the industrial sector and environmental aspects such as ecosystem services.  

CIRED Joint Research Unit (Saclay). AgroParisTech’s International Center for Environmental and Sustainable Development Research is jointly coordinated by AgroParisTech. The SESG Department’s involvement includes two faculty members and two engineers from the IPEF (Bridges, Waters and Forests Corps of Engineers), one of whom is the research laboratory’s director.  

“Paris-Saclay Applied Economics” (PSAE) Joint Research Unit. In 2021, the merging of the Public Economics and ALISS units into a single AgroParisTech/INRAE Joint Research Unit made it possible to cover all of the fields in public economics that involve agricultural, food, environmental, and health policies.  

DRM Joint Research Unit (Dauphine). Dauphine Management Researchis a research laboratory devoted to management science. Its fields of expertise cover marketing, strategy, finance, organizational theory, human resources management, information systems, innovation, accounting, and auditing.   

CMH — Maurice Halbwachs Center Joint Research Unit (Paris).  It is the result of a merger between LASMAS, a laboratory formerly specialized in providing INSEE surveys and performing longitudinal data analysis, and the Department of Social Sciences at École Normale Supérieure Paris. Jointly coordinated by three institutions (ENS, EHESS, CNRS), the CMH is home to sociologists focused on consumerism from INRAE and AgroParisTech.  

LISIS Joint Research Unit (Paris). This interdisciplinary laboratory specialized in corporate science and innovation is jointly coordinated by three main institutions: INRAE, Gustave Eiffel University, and École des Ponts ParisTech.  

MRM, Montpellier Management Research Joint Research Unit (Montpellier) is home to Montpellier’s leading researchers in management science (160 scientists). Montpellier University is the primary institution responsible for its coordination, with Perpignan Via Domitia University (UPVD) also contributing to its coordination to a lesser extent, and AgroParisTech also due to act as a coordinating entity in the future.   

The Territoires (AgroParisTech, INRAE, University of Clermont-Auvergne, and VetAgro Sup) Joint Research Unit brings together one hundred members, including members from the DLAT Joint Research Unit, with a strong interdisciplinary focus (social and biotechnical sciences). 

PRINTEMPS Joint Research Unit (Guyancourt). The Professions, Institutions, Temporalités (PRINTEMPS) laboratory is a CNRS/UVSQ Joint Research Unit. It brings together researchers and faculty members specialized in sociology, demography, and political science from different institutions within Paris-Saclay University. 

The PREDA team, AgroParisTech’s Legal Research hub, is a team of professors working at Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne University through a scientific cooperation agreement signed in 2015.  

PRODIG Joint Research Unit (Aubervilliers). This Joint Research Unit brings together social scientists to pursue a territorial approach to the relationship between development and the environment in a context of global change. It includes members from five institutions (CNRS, Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University, University of Paris [formerly Paris Diderot University], IRD, and AgroParisTech), and one partner institution (Sorbonne University, formerly Paris-Sorbonne).  

SADAPT Joint Research Unit (Saclay), a joint AgroParisTech and INRAE unit, brings together researchers and professors specialized in the humanities and social sciences (Economics, Sociology, Management Science) and in Biotechnical Sciences (Agronomy, Animal Husbandry).  (Link) 

Sayfood Joint Research Unit (Saclay), a joint AgroParisTech and INRAE unit.  This unit is devoted to providing new approaches to product and process engineering and to creating new knowledge to enable the development of new sustainable food systems by working in an interdisciplinary fashion on the design-consumption continuum. 

ESE Joint Research Unit (Saclay). The Evolution, Systematics, and Ecology Joint Research Unit (Paris-Saclay University, CNRS, AgroParisTech) includes an “Ecological Trajectories and Societies” (TESS) team devoted to societal concerns, which develops decision-making tools for biodiversity and socio-ecosystem managers.