With the mission of promoting the development of high-level research in universities, each year, the IUF selects teacher-researchers for the quality of their work, allowing them to benefit from financial support and an adjusted teaching schedule. Winner in 2022, Catherine Malecki will become a senior member of the Fundamental Chair as of October 1st, for a renewable period of 5 years. The choice of the IUF, made by an international jury appointed by the French Ministry of Higher Education and Research, is based on several evaluation criteria: "the groundbreaking and promising (nature) of the research project", "the potential for scientific leadership" and a track record of "creative thinking". The inauguration ceremony of the laureates took place in Paris on October 17th, 2022.

"My research focuses on sustainable finance and corporate social responsibility. Sustainable finance will be the essential support in the fight against climate change or, rather, in its adaptation and mitigation and will in particular allow the development of renewable energies," explains Catherine Malecki. “This finance, which is mainly described as green finance today, will be largely social in the future, as it will be used to fight poverty, finance sustainable agriculture and ensure access to safe drinking water. Sustainable corporate governance is now faced with the new challenges of taking stakeholders into account. A new dense legal landscape that will be nourished by such valuable interdisciplinary studies is being created."

Presentation of Catherine Malecki's research

"The tremendous development of including non-financial information to the fields of corporate governance and sustainable finance with regards to environmental and social issues, the free and easy accessibility of this information to the public, the challenges of the circular economy, call for a study of the role of the stakeholders, a interdisciplinary concept par excellence. Do the stakeholders really benefit from such social corporate governance, generally called 'stakeholder governance'? This project will focus on an analytical and prospective study of the stakeholders' main interests. It will propose an analysis grid of the diverse stakeholders trying to legally classify their modes of actions, to ensure their protection and, ultimately, to validate or not the theoretical and practical emergence of a more stakeholder-oriented corporate governance system."

Video: Interview conducted with her as part of the Day of Research, 2022