The P&Q Interview: Cédric Denis-Rémis On Building ESCP’s ‘MIT In Reverse’

If aliens landed on Earth, Cédric Denis-Rémis would not ask how their spacecraft worked or what distant galaxy they came from.  

He would ask what they teach their children. 

Laws of physics do not change, water is made from the same chemical bonds whether on Earth or on a far-off moon. Alien biology might be different, but life would still depend on some system for storing information and passing knowledge between generations. 

For Denis-Rémis, the thought experiment gets to the central question facing higher education in the age of artificial intelligence: What knowledge will young people need when information is instantly available, machines produce confident answers and the jobs they are preparing for may not yet exist? 

The answer, he says, comes from a mix of science, management, culture, languages, and healthy skepticism. 

“I need the new generation and my students to ask, ‘Is this a good answer?’” says Denis-Rémis, dean of ESCP’s new School of Technology. “I need to put in their minds the art of doubt, which is the scientific method.” 

The tech school is a cornerstone of ESCP’s plan to transform itself from one of Europe’s oldest business schools into what it calls the first European University of Management. 

By 2030, ESCP plans to operate three interconnected schools: its existing business school, the School of Technology opening in 2027 and a School of Governance expected to follow in 2029. The model helped earn ESCP Poets&Quants’ designation as the 2025 Business School of the Year. 

BRINGING SCIENCE BACK TO BUSINESS SCHOOL 

The School of Technology’s first flagship degree, a three-year Bachelor in Management, Science & Technology, will enroll its inaugural cohort in fall 2027. The fully English program is designed for students who feel forced to choose between business and science. Its ideal candidate may be interested in finance, entrepreneurship or management but unwilling to give up mathematics, physics, chemistry or biology. 

It is also developing a portfolio of executive education courses and three specialized MSc programs in Industrial Logistics & Robotics, Product Management, and Technology for Managers. 

The school plans to recruit 50 permanent faculty members over the next five years, beginning in applied mathematics, physics and biology. Denis-Rémis describes the effort as a moonshot—and, at its most ambitious, an attempt to recreate something of the boundary-crossing research culture of Bell Labs in Paris and across Europe. 

The technology faculty will not operate as a separate scientific enclave. They will be ESCP professors expected to collaborate with colleagues in finance, entrepreneurship, strategy and other management disciplines. Students will likewise share facilities, organizations and campus life with the rest of ESCP. 

Q&A WITH CÉDRIC DENIS-RÉMIS 

Denis-Rémis comes to the role from PSL University, where he served as vice president for innovation, entrepreneurship and business models. A professor of entrepreneurship and management, he specializes in deep-tech entrepreneurship, turning scientific discoveries into companies capable of addressing challenges such as climate change, quantum computing and artificial intelligence. 

He spent eight years in mainland China, where he ran an engineering school, and later worked within France’s Grande École system at the École des Mines, an engineering institution whose origins stretch back roughly 250 years. 

To Denis-Rémis, the School of Technology is not as radical a departure for business education as it might first appear. European commercial schools once taught physics and chemistry because merchants needed to understand machinery, materials and which products could safely be transported together. Over time, business schools narrowed their focus to management, economics and finance. 

“The idea is just to bring science back,” he says. 

In the interview below, Denis-Rémis discusses why future managers must understand science, technology and geopolitics as interconnected forces. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.  

Léon Laulusa, the departing dean of ESCP Business School, he described the School of Technology as perhaps “the French MIT in reverse.” How do you interpret that description, and what gap are you trying to fill with this school? 

France is quite good at cinema, but we are not able to create the amazing stories that you have in the United States about universities. One reason is that we do not have your culture of campuses. It is not part of life outside the family, where something can happen. 

That is probably my interpretation of why we say “the French MIT.” It is important because people understand the story of MIT. For me, MIT is connected to Iron Man. If you want to become Iron Man or build Iron Man, you go to MIT. That is Tony Stark’s story. 

This is a time when science and technology are back on track. They are central to questions of strategic autonomy, competition, creating new companies and changing people’s lives. It is about technology, and that is the gap we are going to fill by giving students these new technological skills.  

The School of Technology just launched recruitment for its first program, a three-year Bachelor in Management, Science & Technology. What kind of student are you looking for?  

ESCP is a business school, so we are looking for students who are interested in business. But one of the main issues in France is that bright students have to choose. 

Either you go to business school and attend the French préparatoires for the competitive entrance examination. You study a great deal of economics and management, as well as mathematics because we have this culture of mathematics in France, but you have to give up physics, chemistry and biology. 

On the other hand, you may be a very good student in science and technology but want to learn more about finance, marketing and management. That is not possible. You have to make a choice. 

What is my dream profile? It is an 18-year-old young woman who has top grades and is good at everything. On one side, she sees business school, but she would have to give up the science, physics and chemistry that she likes. On the other side, there is engineering school, where most of the students are male because we still have an issue with too few women entering those fields. 

I will try to give these students the best of both worlds. The program will be approximately 51% management and 49% science and technology because I believe that the majority of these students—perhaps 80%—will continue into a master’s degree or work in management. 

But they will be able to communicate with engineers, work with scientists and work with medical doctors. 

Perhaps you want to work for an investment fund and invest in companies involved in life sciences or health. How can you do that if you do not know the difference between a virus and a bacterium? Perhaps you want to invest in a climate-tech company, but you do not understand how electricity arrives, almost by magic, at your computer. 

That is the main idea. At the end, if some of the brightest students want to go to Caltech because they are good enough, they can go back into science. 

You are building a new school essentially from the ground up. What are some of the immediate priorities you have been working on, and what are the major things you want to accomplish over the next one to two years? 

This is something I will copy from my American friends: It is a moonshot project. 

We are already thinking big. Over the next five years, I am going to recruit 50 full-time, permanent faculty members. That is extremely exciting because science is in a difficult situation. Universities are facing major problems around the world. From time to time, they come under attack, and we have to fight for them. 

We have this opportunity to say, “We are going to recruit permanent faculty.” For what purpose? We have a mission to educate young people and young minds from 17 to 22 years old. 

What is really exciting about the bachelor’s program is that some students may never have considered Europe for this kind of degree. They may have been thinking about Canada, Switzerland or Singapore. 

Then they discover that they can begin in Paris, continue in Turin and finish in London. It is a three-year program across different campuses because we are maintaining the idea of a federated program. 

The first intake will begin in Paris, move to Turin and then go to London. For the second intake, we will also open the campuses in Berlin and Madrid. 

Was there a particular reason for choosing Paris, Turin and London as the first three campuses? Do those cities have especially strong ecosystems, or was there another reason? 

Yes, you are right. There was a great deal of competition among my colleagues because Berlin also has a strong technology ecosystem, as does Madrid. 

I wanted the students to finish in London because of its ecosystem. London is a center for finance and consulting, and the technology sector is also there. We should have a European perspective. 

Most importantly, however, we want to keep the students together as a group for the first intake. It is important that they feel like a family. Later, when you have 200 students, you can divide them into different groups. But the first intake will have between 40 and 60 students. 

Let’s imagine a 17-year-old American student who is considering college, since most of our undergraduate readers are in the United States. American high school students do not necessarily specialize in science as they would in France. How much technical ability do students need for this program?  

The population I am looking for is somewhat narrower because this program is for students who love both areas. They might say, “I like to read books. I am interested in what is happening in the world. But at the same time, I also like science.” 

If you do not like mathematics or physics, this program is not for you. But you do not have to be a geek. Of course, there will be some geeks in the program, but we also want to attract young women by showing them that this is for them. 

Students must demonstrate an interest in at least one scientific discipline—mathematics, physics, biology or chemistry—before their final year of high school. 

Many undergraduate business students are particularly interested in the internships and the pipeline to industry jobs a school can provide. Are you establishing those kinds of pathways? What jobs or career paths do you hope will be available to graduates? 

That is really interesting because I am also very interested in the U.S. perspective. It is one of the major differences between the European and American systems, although Europe varies by country. 

In most Anglo-Saxon countries, including the United Kingdom and Switzerland, students complete a bachelor’s program and then enter the job market. In France, Italy and Spain, most students continue into a graduate program before entering the job market. 

We have designed this program, as we did with the Bachelor in Management, to give students both opportunities. They can begin working or continue into a master’s degree. 

In terms of the job market, the program will prepare students for roles affected by technology. Finance and consulting are being transformed by technology, and about 50% of our students currently enter those fields, so those will be natural paths for them. 

Students will also be able to continue into management programs. If a student wants to pursue a master’s in finance, that option will be open. All of the school’s MSc programs will be open to these students. 

There are also specific jobs for which this combination of skills will be particularly relevant. If you want to invest in technology companies as a venture capitalist, for example, you need to understand technology. 

The program will prepare students for all the jobs that require them to bridge different fields and work with engineers, scientists or medical doctors. In that sense, they will have access to more kinds of jobs. 

We expect that a minority of students—perhaps the strongest ones—will discover that they love mathematics and may want to enter an engineering school. 

You have a goal of recruiting 50 science-based faculty members. While the United States has traditionally been a leading destination for scientists because of the salaries and research funding available, that has come under increasing pressure from the Trump administration. Are you seeing interest from U.S. scientists who want to relocate to Europe? Is this a good opportunity for you as you build the school? 

I do not view it in terms of opportunity. We are looking for scientists who want to develop and build a new generation of research questions. 

I will begin with applied mathematics, physics and biology because those are the fields connected to the real-world economy. I will start there because, as you remember, our DNA is business. 

If I can rebuild Bell Labs in Paris and Europe, then, of course, people should join us. Let’s build Bell Labs again. This is an amazing period of time. 

When I was at PSL, I built two investment funds totaling €200 million. We helped build companies such as Alice & Bob, a quantum-computing company in which Nvidia invested a few months ago. The company is part of the race to build a quantum-computing machine. 

What was interesting at the time was that investors put money into the company, but the people working there ultimately produced papers in Nature and Science. That is a somewhat unusual kind of venture. When you invest money in a company, you expect it to make money, not publish research. 

This is also happening in artificial machine intelligence. Yann LeCun, executive chairman of AMI Labs and the patron of the School of Technology, left Meta and built his company in Paris. He is also the patron of the program and will give lectures and participate in other ways. 

LeCun has raised a great deal of money while saying, “We are not building a product. We are doing research.” 

We are living through a period similar to the era of Bell Labs, when it is difficult to determine the balance between fundamental and applied research. It is an extremely exciting time. 

How far along are you in the faculty recruitment process? What is your current faculty count, and are people reaching out to you? 

As you understand, we have a huge ambition in terms of scale. But at the beginning, we are starting slowly. We opened four positions this year. There will be six or seven in 2027, and then there will be more. 

We want to start slowly. The ESCP brand is extremely well known in Europe, but we also want to begin with a small number of bachelor’s students because we want to take care of them. We have many things to build with the professors. 

I should invite you to look at our scientific committee. We have Michel Devoret, the Nobel Prize winner in physics. We have Cédric Villani, who is a Fields Medalist, as well as patrons who are CEOs of large companies. 

The question is: What kind of mathematics do we need to teach our young students? Of course, they need abstraction. They need statistics and computer science. But beyond that, what kind of mathematics should we teach? Mathematics is a huge field, and they have only three years. 

We will have 300 years of science to cover, including chemistry and biology, so we have to make choices. The discussions with the professors are very difficult. 

At the same time, it is really exciting because it gives them the opportunity to start with a blank page. You put the brightest minds in a room and say, “We are not trying to produce Nobel Prize winners in physics or mathematics. We want to educate a new generation of students who do not know what the future will be, but we want to give them knowledge that will still be useful in 20 or 30 years.” 

That is what I promise families. It is a real promise that, in 20 years, the knowledge students learn at the school will still be useful in their lives. 

Beyond the bachelor’s, what other programs are currently in development for the School of Technology? 

We will open several master’s programs in September, although I am not communicating as much about them as I am about the bachelor’s program. 

Why? Because we already have a market for them. 

The first program we will open is in product management in technology. We need product owners and product managers. To design a product like my AirPods, for example, you need people who can translate between those working on the user experience and those building the actual product. 

The product has to look good. It needs a good microphone when I am outside, perhaps noise cancellation, and it has to fit in my pocket. I need at least two hours of battery life and so on. But someone has to translate all of those requirements into a real product. 

The second program will be in physical robotics, or what we call physical AI, because industry needs these technologies for logistics and other applications. This program may open in 2027 or 2028. It is a question of whether we can complete the accreditation process in time.  

Last but not least, AI is having a very strong impact on finance and consulting. We therefore need a technology specialization for students entering those fields. 

I know we have been discussing the programs the School of Technology will offer, but how will the school work with ESCP’s broader management ecosystem and its more management-focused programs? How will the technology and management faculty collaborate? This seems like a relatively new model for Europe. 

If you take one step back and look at the global higher education ecosystem, there are between 20,000 and 30,000 higher education institutions worldwide. About 3,000 of them have invested significantly in research, and perhaps 1,000 are competing to appear in the rankings and establish their presence. 

But what is the unit of measurement? It is the university. It is not the Grande École. It is the university. 

A business school on its own is, in a sense, simply a business school. ESCP’s project is to become the first European University of Management. We are starting with the School of Technology, and next year we will open the School of Governance. 

We will have dedicated faculty, but they will be ESCP faculty based within the School of Technology. They will have the same salaries and be part of the same institution. They may be a little more geeky, but they will be the same professors. 

The students will also all be ESCP students. Some will be in the School of Technology, and some will be in the business school, but they will all belong to ESCP. They will have access to the same facilities, carry the same student cards and attend the same parties.  

I want the School of Technology professors to collaborate with business school professors from the beginning. We are not recruiting mathematics professors simply to conduct mathematics within the School of Technology without any exchange with the rest of the institution. We want to create a kind of hybridization. 

We are not building a comprehensive university made up of silos. We are building a hybrid university in the field of management. Today, management requires technology, mathematics, AI and an understanding of the complexity of the world. 

I found the combination of management, technology and geopolitics very interesting. Why is geopolitics complementary to the School of Technology? 

The School of Governance will address international governance, including geopolitics. It will also address public policy—how to manage public organizations—as well as the governance of private organizations, including corporate boards.  

It returns to our earlier question: What are we going to teach our children? 

Understanding geopolitics is also part of what he will need. It will probably not be his job, but he needs to understand why there is war in the Middle East, why the relationship between Taiwan and China is complex and why the United States and China are competing over technology. 

Students need to understand that the world is not simply black or white. We need to teach students to engage in nuanced, detail-oriented discussions and prepare them for this complex world. 

That is a huge responsibility, and it is why I decided to join ESCP. There is nothing more exciting than starting the School of Technology.  

One final thought: Business school leaders often talk about the major challenges facing humanity, the large-scale solutions those challenges will require and the role business schools should play. You can really see that reflected in this model, which brings together science, business and geopolitics. How do you see the school preparing students to address big, society level challenges? 

The question is: What do we need to teach this generation, which will have access to all information almost instantly and, in many ways, very accurately? 

The answer is quite simple: We need to prepare them to ask the right questions. 

In management, for instance, we have added courses on managing AI and managing agents because, tomorrow, people will have to manage agents. That is something new. 

In some ways, we need to give students the right knowledge, prepare them to ask the right questions and help them understand people. This is a huge responsibility we have toward this new generation because there is a great deal of uncertainty about the future. 

In the United States especially, I am following the discussion about whether jobs may disappear and what that would mean for people. It raises many questions. 

If we give students solid knowledge, teach them to ask questions and prepare them to interact with other humans and with machines, I think we will already have done a good job. 

DON’T MISS: ESCP’S LAUNCHES TWO NEW BACHELOR’S DEGREES, PUTTING ITS TECHNOLOGY AND GOVERNANCE AMBITIONS INTO ACTION and ESCP BUSINESS SCHOOL NAMES THOMAS JEANJEAN EXECUTIVE PRESIDENT & DEAN 

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