Laura Michel - Mak'it great again

Laura Michel is open-minded. Probably because the deputy director of the Centre d'études politiques et sociales (Cepel) knows that all the human and social sciences (SHS) are needed to analyze how our societies absorb, digest and sometimes spit out environmental issues. A specialist in the "greening" of industrial and regional policies, since 2024 she has headed the Montpellier I-site's key initiative on public policies for transition (KIPPT), which brings together political science, education, economics, law, management and geography.

100% SHS, this program involves some twenty Montpellier research laboratories. " Our bimonthly seminars are very dynamic, with around fifty participants at each event," says the political scientist, whose aim is to structure researchers into a community. Endowed with 300,000 euros over two years, the initiative also funds multi-disciplinary research projects emphasizing dialogue between science and society: " A dozen projects have already been launched on subjects ranging from agrivoltaics to mobility, including nature sports and the financing of transitions. "

Observing trade-offs

This ambition to structure relations between researchers working on transition policies and public and civil society players suits her well. Indeed, Laura Michel's life before research was devoted to serving local authorities and industry.

After working as a researcher at the Observatoire de la fonction publique territoriale, she went on to consult on environmental conflict management for various industrial groups. This gives her the opportunity to observe arbitration from the inside.

Above all, this experience convinced her to return to research. This she did with an Ademe-funded thesis in 2003, which led to a position as a lecturer at the University of Montpellier a year later. Since then, she has been looking at " how environmental issues are brought into the public arena and how industrialists and elected representatives integrate them, with the aim not of transforming the industrialist system, but of making it last ". In short, to understand how the conditions for maintaining the current system, however destructive it may be, are produced.

For example, Laura Michel looks at how environmental criticism is channelled into public action: " Environmental controversies have encouraged the greening of public policy. However, this process has also come up against forms of recuperation and strategies for channelling criticism by hegemonic actors, which limit its transformative potential ". With 20 years of research under his belt, it would be difficult to list all his research themes. However, we should mention policies for adapting coastal areas to climate change, and sustainable food policies, two subjects dear to the metropolis.

A welcome as enriching as possible

As a logical extension of her two-year involvement in the Public Policy for Transition initiative, Laura Michel took over as director of Mak'it, Montpellier's Institute for Advanced Studies (IEA) in 2025: " These IEAs are international facilities designed to welcome top-level international scientists and stimulate collective research dynamics. In Montpellier, it specializes in transition. My appointment comes at a time when the strategic committee has decided to strengthen the SHS and the theme of transition policies within the scheme. "

The new director also announced a new feature in Mak'it's recruitment system, designed to make the most of the researchers' presence in the Montpellier scientific community, and to provide them with the most enriching hosting experience possible: " We require a project to be jointly developed by the visiting researcher and the host unit ". The application process will be more demanding, with hosting periods ranging from 3 to 6 months. But the stakes are well worth the effort for the new director, who is determined to maintain her high standards after 6 years of operation and 75 visiting researchers of 37 different nationalities.