CURRICULUM INNOVATION
and AI. Establishing a presence at Station F amplifies this dynamic by allowing students to work alongside developers, AI engineers, UX designers and deep tech experts. Such interactions reinforce students’ participation in producing new knowledge, whether through research- based entrepreneurship, data-driven experimentation, or collaborative innovation projects. This exposure produces graduates who are able to master several professional cultures, a skill highly valued by investors, employers and policymakers alike. School incubators, once marginal structures, have played a major role in energising the French entrepreneurial ecosystem by providing funding support, mentoring, legal guidance, technical workshops and access to networks. Today, they have become strategic platforms: creators of jobs, drivers of technological innovation and catalysts for economic transformation. Their role extends beyond supporting ventures: they are major contributors to regional innovation systems, shaping public debates and participating in the development of new knowledge on entrepreneurship and innovation more broadly. Forging fluid, future-proof learning ecosystems The boundaries between campuses, companies, start-ups and digital environments are increasingly disappearing, allowing students to move fluidly between different roles such as learner, founder, employee, researcher and innovator. This fluidity enhances their ability to engage with complex challenges and to build professional identities that are less linear, more adaptive and more resilient. In this context, integrating management schools into innovation ecosystems is no longer optional: it is a condition for their future relevance and long-term impact. They must become open platforms where academic concepts, skills, and resources circulate; where knowledge is co-constructed with the economic world; and where learning is grounded in action and experience. This is the purpose of Emlyon’s presence at Station F: educating responsible leaders today requires immersing them in environments where innovations are tested, prototyped and evaluated, not only theoretically understood, but actively experienced and applied. Today’s major challenges call for strong alliances between schools, companies, researchers, startups and public bodies. Business schools have a crucial role to play: by embedding themselves at the heart of innovation ecosystems, they contribute to designing more sustainable economic models, promoting responsible innovation and strengthening bridges between research, entrepreneurship and society. Our ambition is not only to train entrepreneurs, but to develop leaders capable of transforming organisations in the service of a fairer, more inclusive and more sustainable society.
strategic location represents more than an address: it is a profound transformation in how the school conceives knowledge creation, student learning and its relationships with the economic world and broader society today. Daily immersion within an ecosystem of more than 1,000 startups, investors and technology actors enables students to experience innovation first-hand, including its execution speed, uncertainty, strategic pivots, trade‑offs and rigorous standards. Such immersion in innovative environments develops cognitive agility, resilience and a deeper understanding of how ideas become viable, scalable solutions in practice. It also strengthens the school’s ability to support entrepreneurial projects at every stage of maturity thanks to access to AI experts, technical workshops, sector‑specific programmes and specialists in deep tech or UX design. Above all, immersion accelerates learning: students do not simply analyse case studies; they become part of a living, breathing innovation ecosystem that evolves in real time. Entrepreneurship today requires hybrid competencies such as business acumen, design sensitivity, data literacy, technological fluency and impact orientation because innovation emerges from the intersection of disciplines rather than from their separation. Business schools worldwide are multiplying partnerships with engineering schools, design institutions, research laboratories and public bodies. Yet hybridisation goes further: it is also about cultivating the capacity to speak multiple professional languages; to understand how different communities of experts produce knowledge; and to navigate heterogeneous cognitive worlds with confidence and adaptability in practice. At Emlyon, this hybridisation takes the form not only of prestigious dual degrees, but also the integration of AI across all programmes and the creation of a new tech school in 2027 dedicated to quantum technologies, data
BIOGRAPHY Isabelle Huault has been president of the executive board of Emlyon Business School since September 2020. Prior to this, she held several senior academic and management positions over 15 years at Université Paris Dauphine-PSL, including serving as its president. Huault has enhanced Emlyon’s international visibility by structuring numerous partnerships and alliances, as well as opening campuses abroad; she has also been instrumental in developing new digital programmes and supporting pedagogical innovation and entrepreneurship
Ambition • ISSUE 3 • 2026 23
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