As 2025 draws to a close, CREST reflects on a year marked by outstanding research achievements, prestigious recognitions, and impactful initiatives. Below is an overview of the laboratory’s key highlights.
This year was notably marked by CREST’s evaluation by HCERES, which recognised the laboratory as an excellent multidisciplinary research centre, particularly for the quality of its publications and its strong international visibility.
In 2025, CREST also organised its first retreat, a collective event dedicated to reflecting on the future of the laboratory and initiating concrete measures to improve laboratory life, internal communication, and the consideration of key issues such as research organisation, environmental policy, and international inclusion.
Key figures
- Researchers | 112
- PhD candidates | 100 PhD currently enrolled at CREST-Institut Polytechnique de Paris
- ERC Grants | 9 ERC grants in Economics, Sociology, and Statistics
Doctoral training
In 2025, CREST organised a series of doctoral courses delivered by professors from leading universities (MIT, Oxford, University of Tokyo, among others), offering advanced training to ENSAE Paris students and, in particular, to CREST PhD candidates. These courses enabled doctoral researchers to deepen their theoretical and methodological skills while engaging with cutting-edge research developed in academic environments beyond CREST.
20 PhD candidates graduated from CREST-IP Paris in 2025, pursuing a wide range of high-level career paths across academia, the public sector, and industry. Several alumni secured academic positions as Assistant Professors at institutions such as LMU Munich, ETH Zurich, and Hitotsubashi University. Other joined key public institutions, including a position as Head of the Families Study Section at INSEE, or transitioned to the private sector as Applied Scientist at Amazon and Economist at Malt. These placements reflect CREST’s strong commitment to doctoral training and its ability to prepare PhD graduates for impactful careers across sectors.
Research Breakthroughs: 204 Publications
In 2025, CREST published 204 scientific contributions, including conference papers presented at major international venues. Nearly 80% of these publications appeared in top Q1 journals, reflecting the breadth and depth of research conducted across the laboratory’s clusters.
Selected highlights include:
The Negligible Effect of Free Contraception on Fertility: Experimental Evidence from Burkina Faso, Pascaline Dupas, Seema Jayachandran, Adriana Lleras-Muney, Pauline Rossi, American Economic Review
From Public Labs to Private Firms: Magnitude and Channels of Local R&D Spillovers, Antonin Bergeaud, Arthur Guillouzouic, Emeric Henry, Clément Malgouyres, Quarterly Journal of Economics
The Biodiversity Premium, Guillaume Coqueret, Thomas Giroux, Olivier-David Zerbib, Ecological Economics
Propagation of a Carbon Price in a Credit Portfolio through Macroeconomic Factors, Géraldine Bouveret, Jean-François Chassagneux, Smail Ibbou, Antoine J. Jacquier, Lionel Sopgoui, SIAM Journal on Financial Mathematics
Machine Bias: How Do Generative Language Models Answer Opinion Polls?, Julien Boelaert, Samuel Coavoux, Etienne Ollion, Ivaylo Petev, Patrick Präg, Sociological Methods & Research
Beyond Indices: Profiles of Social Vulnerability Gap in Disaster Risk Perception, Eric Tate, Samuel Rufat, Md Asif Rahman, Shelley Hoover, International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction
Mapping Cells trough Time and Space with MOSCOT, Dominik Klein et al., Nature
Asymptotic Equivalence of Locally Stationary Processes and Bivariate Gaussian White Noise, Cristina Butucea, Alexander Meister, Angelika Rohde, Annals of Statistics
Discover more CREST publications on our HAL webpage.
Impactful Events and Conferences
Throughout the year, CREST actively participated in and hosted events fostering collaboration and scientific exchange, including:
- Exploring Political and Economic Dynamics: A Conference with Guido Tabellini
- Summer School on Environmental Data Collection and Analysis for the Social Sciences
- Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS) and CREST’s 19 accepted papers
- Navigating the Future of Money: The Futures of Money Workshop
- Paola Tubaro at Buenos Aires’ “Nuit des Idées” on the Invisible Workforce Behind AI
- Summer Institute in Computational Social Sciences with a focus on large language models and generative AI
Join future events: visit our calendar
Chairs and Research Structures
In 2025, CREST welcomed two new chairs:
- CARE | Assurabilité des Risques Emergents, led by Olivier Lopez, focusing on climate risk modelling, risk coverage and distribution mechanisms, and prevention strategies, with Allianz IARD, Institut Louis Bachelier, Fondation du Risque. More information here.
- Hi! Paris Chair, led by Etienne Ollion, developing the Textual Politics, project on the transformation of political analysis through natural language processing. More information here.
Awards and Recognitions
CREST researchers received numerous distinctions in 2025, including:
- ERC Advanced Grant awarded to Arnak Dalalyan for Statistical Analysis of Generative Models: Sampling Guarantees and Robustness (SAGMOS)
- ERC Starting Grant awarded to Anna Korba for Efficient Infinite-Dimensional Optimization over Measures (OptInfinite)
- Etienne Ollion, honourable mention by the American Political Science Associate for his book The Candidates
- Maddalena Conte, recipient of the Philippe Martin Best Thesis Award in Economics for her work on highlighting the decisive role of professional networks, access to housing, and business location in regional inequalities.
- Thomas Giroux, recipient of the 2025 Award for Young Researchers in Green Finance from the Banque de France.
Several CREST researchers were also appointed to key institutional roles, including the Conseil d’Analyse Economique, for Emmanuelle Taugourdeau and Pauline Rossi, Patricia Crifo was named a Senior Advisor at la Cour des Comptes. Julien Prat was named Head of the Department of Economics-Sociology at Institut Polytechnique de Paris.
Books, Projects, and Initiatives
In 2025, CREST researchers authored and contributed to major collective works and projects:
- Handbook of Quantitative Finance, edited by Peter Tankov and Ruixing Zhang, addressing sustainability, climate risk, regulation, and sustainable financial instruments.
- Google has again supported CREST researchers:
- Anna Korba for her project “Optimizing Diffusion Models via Generative Bilevel Learning“
- Vianney Perchet for his project “Design, Incentivization, Optimization and (Reinforcement-)Learning of Multi-Layered Market“
- Guillaume Hollard launched OrienteExpress, a research project with Ecole polytechnique and Docaposte (Index Education) on AI for career guidance and equal opportunities.
- Observatory of Equal Opportunities, jointly launched by IP Paris, the Ecoles Normales Supérieures, and the Institut des Politiques Publiques, with CREST researchers contributing to the analysis of inequalities in access to elite higher education.
This year also marked the third season of the Beyond the PhD video series, featuring Benoît Schmutz-Bloch, Caroline Hillairet, Paola Tubaro, and Nicolas Chopin, who shared their thoughts on the PhD journey, its impact on their careers, and the broader role of research in society.
Media and Outreach
In 2025, CREST researchers were featured in:
- More than 100 media outlets, including, Le Monde, Les Echos, France Culture, Libération, and La Tribune.
- 24+ op-eds and expert articles contributing to public debate.
Featured interview: Béatrice Cherrier discusses the 2025 Nobel Prize in Economics. Listen here.
International Scientific Exchange
In 2025, CREST organised 228 research seminars across macroeconomics, applied microeconomics, sociology, finance and financial econometrics, quantitative sustainable economics and finance, statistics, actuarial science, mathematical finance, and AI for social sciences. Researchers from 20 countries were invited, representing institutions across North America, Europe, and Asia, including UCLA, MIT, Yale, Columbia, Northwestern, Oxford, LSE, ETH Zurich, Bocconi, HEC Lausanne, KU Leuven, LMU, Toronto, Waseda, and Osaka University. This extensive programme further reinforced CREST’s role as a central hub for international research dialogue.
CREST celebrated a year of remarkable achievements and meaningful contributions to research, society, and global debates. From groundbreaking publications to prestigious awards and high-level scientific exchanges, CREST community continues to push boundaries and foster innovation.
Looking ahead, CREST remains committed to advancing interdisciplinary research, addressing major societal challenges, and nurturing a collaborative and inclusive environment for researchers and students alike.