A graduate of’HEC Paris in 2010, the Alternative Management Major (founded by Eve Chiapello), Claire-Isabelle became a Research and Projects Officer in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and the Social and Solidarity Economy (SSE). In 2018, her thesis defended at the University of Nantes and Audencia, on organisational models that support radical environmental commitment, has won several awards: ADERSE, ORSE and ANDESE. She then secured funding (€345,000) for her postdoctoral research (University of Lausanne) from the FNS, during which she studied the strategies employed by radical social movements to critique and transform institutions. In 2024, Claire-Isabelle became an associate researcher at LEMNA, part of the University of Nantes. She set up and co-ordinated the LINEA project, funded by the’ANACT. At the end of 2025, she joined the European project WISESHIFT, on the role of social inclusion in the ecological and inclusive transition, with the Laboratory for the Economics and Sociology of Work (LEST), a joint CNRS research unit based at Aix-Marseille University.
Claire-Isabelle Roquebert’s research focuses on the tensions experienced by employees, managers and senior executives when implementing socio-ecological commitments, as well as on the organisational practices and models that enable these commitments to be sustained. Claire-Isabelle draws on approaches from sociology and employs qualitative methods (case studies, longitudinal studies, ethnography). Her work is published in peer-reviewed journals (Organisation (CNRS 1, HCERES A), Business and Society (CNRS 2, HCERES A)) and popular science media (The Conversation, CCD at the University of Lausanne (Unil)); and are presented annually at international conferences (AOM, EGOS, AIMS, RIODD).
WISESHIFT stands for “Multi-level policies and theories on how to utilise Work Integration Social Enterprises to achieve an inclusive and sustainable socio-economic transition.”
Running from March 2025 to February 2029, this research and innovation project brings together 13 partners from 8 countries. It aims to uncover the organisational and ecosystem factors that make WISEs “inclusive and sustainable by design,” and to develop supportive multi-level policy frameworks.
A key feature of WISESHIFT is its focus on three strategic areas in which WISEs are particularly active and demonstrate strong potential for transformation:
These areas provide key insights into how WISEs operate at the intersection of social inclusion, sustainability and local development.
WISESHIFT builds on a research tradition centred on WISEs that has been ongoing since the 1990s by some of the partners who, as part of the EMES Network, began researching this subset of the social economy. At that time, the PERSE project, led by UCLouvain (coordinator of WISESHIFT), carried out a comparative analysis of 160 WISEs across Europe operating in a wide range of sectors, identifying 44 different types of WISEs. Through various forms of integration, these WISEs tackle the problems of long-term unemployment and labour market inactivity amongst disadvantaged people. The project’s findings were published in the groundbreaking book *Social Enterprise: At the Crossroads of Market, Public Policy and Civil Society*, published by Routledge in 2006.
More recently, the B-WISE project, led by the European network of WISEs, ENSIE, and with the participation of EURICSE and the University of Zagreb, developed and implemented a European strategy to address skills needs – particularly in relation to digital skills – within the WISE sector. These three key partners are also part of WISESHIFT.