The AFG is a partner of the Centre des Professions Financières for the 37th International Economics and Finance Thesis Competition. The theme chosen for the 2026 edition is « SOVEREIGNTY AND DEPENDENCE: A TIME FOR CHOICES »
Know more

• Who can compete: all Master’s 1 or Master’s 2 students
• Register beforme Dec. 31rd!
• Registration form
• Competition rules
  
  Each new crisis seems to confirm one observation: the world is becoming more fragmented and closed off. Europe is discovering its vulnerability. Dependent on Russian gas, Chinese lithium, Taiwanese semiconductors and American technology, it is paying the price for decades of deindustrialisation and bets on a stable world order. The promise of a world pacified by trade is coming up against a brutal return to power struggles. The time for illusions is over: autonomy is becoming a condition for survival, and ‘strategic sovereignty’ is becoming essential. Europe must make choices: produce on its own soil, control its data, secure its supplies, protect its populations without giving up cooperation. But sovereignty has an economic and political cost, and the challenge is to find a new balance.

Attentive to these topics, the Jury of the 37th Competition will reward the best theses (Master 1 and 2) in Economics and Finance, in French or English, that delve into one of the following themes and lead to concrete proposals:

• The place and role of states and international organisations in a turbulent geopolitical and commercial context
• The weight and management of debt, inflation control, financial stability, the role of currencies; electronic currencies and new payment methods
• Risk assessment and management by banks, insurance companies, asset managers, new forms of credit, and the mobilisation of long-term savings
• Financing infrastructure and strategic priorities (reindustrialisation, defence, energy, water, raw materials, technology); managing climate and ecological transitions in the face of constraints
• Financing research and innovation and the challenges in terms of sovereignty, competitiveness and productivity
• AI, data management, cybersecurity
• Services to the population and their financing (health, dependency, education, training, unemployment, retirement, etc.); demographic imperatives
• New ways of working and employment, the place of humans
• Management of territories, living areas and their priorities, transport, security, sport, culture
• The impact of taxation and legal certainty, areas of sovereignty
• The challenges of regulatory and accounting standardisation, the implementation of extra-financial accounting and ESG