With ‘New Responsibilities’ Strategy, HEC Paris Sets Ambitious 5-Year Fundraising Goal: €300 Million

HEC Paris is embarking on one of the most sweeping strategic shifts in its 144-year history, unveiling a new institutional blueprint built around societal engagement, knowledge dissemination, and large-scale impact beyond its student body. The New Responsibilities strategy includes a major fundraising campaign aimed at securing €300 million for the HEC Foundation by 2031, the year the school will celebrate the 150th anniversary of its founding.

The school says in its announcement that the strategy responds to a moment when “debate is drying up, social mobility has stalled and immense challenges lie ahead,” and positions HEC Paris to play a more active role in shaping public discourse, supporting social ascension, and co-developing solutions to global challenges. 

“The New Responsibilities strategy marks a turning point for HEC Paris, making it a school that puts its research, its faculty and its ecosystem to work for all those who may never become HEC graduates, but whose energy and talent will play a role in the solutions of the future,” says Eloïc Peyrache, dean of HEC Paris.

EXPANDING ACCESS & SOCIAL ASCENSION

A €300 million fundraising effort will anchor the initiative. Of that total, €100 million will support a reinvention of the school’s campus in Jouy-en-Josas, slated for delivery by 2031. The remaining €200 million will fuel the strategy itself. Jean-François Palus, former group managing director of Kering and president & CEO of Gucci, will succeed Olivier Sevillia as president of the HEC Foundation to lead the campaign.

At the heart of the strategy is a commitment to combat what the school calls in its announcement “an unprecedented stagnation in social ascension in France.” HEC Paris plans to significantly widen its engagement with young people across the country, reaching thousands of pupils annually through public-speaking programs like Eloquentia@HEC and entrepreneurship programs such as HEC Young Innovators.

The school will also continue diversifying its admissions pathways and scaling financial support for French and international students, with the goal of achieving at least 25% social scholarship students in its Master in Management program. HEC says this expanded effort extends beyond traditional social-mobility work, aiming to “change the destiny of thousands of vulnerable but talented individuals across France, so that they may live from their activity, create jobs, and regain or inspire confidence.”

On campus, HEC Paris intends to transform the student experience into what it describes as a “venue for change,” integrating community service, mentorship, and personal development to cultivate “meaningful and empathic leadership in a fragmented world.”

A NEW RESEARCH MODEL & MEDIA PLATFORM

To strengthen its role in public discourse, HEC Paris will consolidate its centers of excellence—including entrepreneurship, tech, sustainability, leadership, family business, and AI—into a new integrated structure called the HEC Institute. The institute will create a more visible ecosystem of research, expertise, and policy-relevant output on issues such as climate transition, AI, democracy, future of work, social cohesion, and geopolitics.

Beginning in 2026, the school will launch applied initiatives rooted in faculty research, including barometers tracking economic and social transformations, position papers for policymakers, interdisciplinary studies, faculty research summaries, and strategic forums linking researchers, business leaders, public officials, and citizens.

At the same time, HEC Paris will create its own media platform. The HEC Media Hub, set to launch in 2026, will provide free access to the school’s ideas and research in formats ranging from podcasts to data stories. Its mission is “to give HEC Paris a voice that is clear, thorough, humanist and geared toward action.”

MULTIDISCIPLINARITY & EUROPEAN AMBITION

The strategy also aims to elevate HEC Paris as a multidisciplinary, European-driven institution that blends management education with economics, geopolitics, scientific literacy, and hands-on experience. The school plans deeper collaboration with the Polytechnique Institute of Paris, including the creation of “Hi Pace,” a unified structure within the Hi! PARIS AI and data science center that will house joint initiatives in AI and data education.

Across all programs—from pre-experience degrees to MBAs—students will learn what the school calls the “language of science and technology” within a responsible and ethical framework.

Entrepreneurship remains central to the school’s vision. HEC Paris plans to enhance its role as one of Europe’s leading entrepreneurial ecosystems, supporting both new venture creation and growth for existing businesses. That includes a platform for business takeovers, expected to grow sharply across Europe in the coming years, and a new acceleration platform designed to help start-ups scale into national and European champions.

A NEW ECONOMIC MODEL FOR THE FUTURE

The school frames the New Responsibilities strategy as the final step toward full economic independence, a process begun in 2016. Earlier phases focused on administrative autonomy and balancing the school’s operating budget without shareholder subsidies. The next goal: independence in investment.

HEC Paris says its long-term model will rely on maintaining its leadership in pre-experience masters programs, strengthening its global position in the MBA market, expanding its portfolio of continuing education programs, and building a presence in bachelor-level education. It also plans to grow philanthropic support and use the campus transformation as a foundation for long-term institutional resilience.

Jean-François Palus, incoming president of the HEC Foundation, says the new capital campaign represents a major inflection point. 

“Over the past 20 years, the HEC Foundation has laid solid groundwork and accelerated the school’s transformations,” he says in the news release. “Our new fund-raising campaign, #HEC, Campus of the Future, will enable us to give HEC Paris the means to fully achieve its mission: informing the great debates of our era and inspiring decision-makers, reshaping the destinies not only of our students, but of many other talented individuals with incredible potential, encouraging entrepreneurial spirit and co-creating solutions to the major challenges we face – all within a campus that has been completely revamped for the next 50 years.”

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