Graduate School Sustainability, Organisations and Institutions Best Thesis Awards: Celebrating Scientific Excellence in Sustainability

The three laureates of the Graduate School’s 2025 Best Thesis Awards. From left to right: Yasmine Vevert, Luna Colovray, and Luciano Genola.

The Graduate School Sustainability, Organisations and Institutions currently brings together 170 students across six different master’s programs and collaborates with two doctoral schools at our university. It is also a partner of the UNESCO Chair “Higher Education for Sustainable Development in Africa” at the University of Manouba (UMA) in Tunisia.

The Graduate School’s Best Thesis Award was created in 2024 by Petia Koleva, Head of the Graduate School, to highlight the scientific quality of master’s theses, help structure a doctoral talent pool, and foster a collective dynamic across programs. It also serves to indirectly recognize the work of supervisors, which often remains largely invisible.

The evaluation criteria for the theses are based on:

• The originality of the research

• The quality of argumentation and analysis

• The potential impact of the research on practices, policies, or academic debates in the field of sustainability

For this 2nd edition of the Award, the multidisciplinary jury recognized the following works:

1st Prize for Luciano Genola, student in the Master’s in Economic Analysis and Policy: Industrial Subcontracting and Labor Exploitation in Contemporary France: An Empirical Analysis Based on Survey Data (supervised by Camille Signoretto, Associate Professor, UPCité).

The jury recognized the combination of theoretical depth and empirical rigor, as well as the research’s direct contribution to issues of social sustainability.

Currently pursuing a PhD in Economics at UPCité, Luciano explains:

« My research question focuses on the definition of wage exploitation within industrial subcontracting and aims to test the hypothesis that the choice to subcontract certain activities may respond to the imperative of seeking surplus value. More broadly, this work seeks to improve our understanding of industrial structure in contemporary French capitalism. The idea of sustainability is thus questioned in two ways: both in terms of employment conditions for workers and in terms of the sustainability of profits for employers. I am currently continuing these investigations in my PhD in Economics.

I am very proud to have received an award for this thesis (at a very pleasant ceremony) and I would like to thank the Graduate School for its pedagogical support during my Master’s.

2nd Prize for Yasmine Vevert, student in the Master’s in Sustainable Development Law and currently preparing for the Barreau exam: The Legal Status of Environmental Displaced Persons (supervised by Patricia Savin, Associate Lawyer, DS AVOCATS).

Her work was recognized for the universal and forward-looking relevance of her research on climate justice and environmental displacement.

3rd Prize  for Luna Colovray, student in the Master’s in Economic Analysis and Policy: Speaking of the City, Remaking the Ground: The Mairie d’Aubervilliers District and Support Strategies Related to Line 15 East:  Land and Urban Planning Serving a Programmed Gentrification? (supervised by Pascal Grouiez, Professor, UPCité).

The jury recognized the analytical depth and the high quality of her writing on urban gentrification.

Currently pursuing a PhD in Geography at Avignon University, Luna explains:

« For my thesis, I studied urban transformations, particularly in land and real estate, in the Mairie d’Aubervilliers station district, shaped by redevelopment policies linked to the future arrival of Line 15 of the Grand Paris Express. I aimed to show how the construction of new narratives of centrality, the valorization of heritage, and the reorganization of land contribute to a profound transformation of the city center. In this way, I demonstrated that the gentrification process is indeed the result of deliberate public policies, part of a broader effort for symbolic and functional redevelopment of the inner suburbs.

This work allowed me to transition to a PhD in Geography, focusing on how such urban transformations depend on the choices of landowners, whose behavior is notably determined by the method of land acquisition (purchase, inheritance, donation, etc.). My research draws on both the economic knowledge I gained during my studies and the insights developed while completing my master’s thesis.»

Heading to United Nations COP17 for the laureates

The 2025 Best Thesis Award winners will have the opportunity to participate in the International Désertif’action Summit, “Territorial Resilience in Times of Crisis” (March 25–28, 2026, Tunisia). This event will bring together 350 international participants (including civil society representatives, researchers, scientists, NGOs, associations, private and public institutions, and local authorities) with the goal of co-creating advocacy based on concrete and relevant solutions to influence decisions at the United Nations COP17 on combating desertification.

A Strategic Award in Support of Research

The Master’s Best Thesis Award is not just an honorary distinction: it is a structuring tool, incitative, symbolic, and strategic, serving research-based education, institutional attractiveness, and preparation for doctoral research.

• Incitative: It encourages students to invest more in their theses, which are often perceived as a mere rite of passage.

• Symbolic: The award demonstrates the Graduate School’s clear commitment to research, scientific quality, and interdisciplinarity. Notably, two of the three 2025 laureates have received doctoral funding.

• Strategic: The award helps identify, retain, and showcase top Master’s students, thereby strengthening the Graduate School’s attractiveness, doctoral talent pool, and scientific coherence.