Homepage – « Strategy, Business Intelligence and Risk Management » Major

Welcome to the website of the Stratégie, Intelligence économique et Gestion des Risques (SIGR)/Strategy, Business Intelligence and Risk Management major at Sciences Po Lille.

Course objective

The Stratégie, Intelligence économique et Gestion des Risques (SIGR)/Strategy, Business Intelligence and Risk Management major addresses major international defense and security issues, including intelligence and business intelligence. Students acquire the skills they need to analyze and support decision-making in the public and private sectors in matters of international security.

The course combines academic teaching (S1 and S2) with professional workshops (S2 and S3), taught by lecturers in political science, economics, law, history and economics, and practitioners (administrative managers, officers, industrialists, European experts). This approach enables students to develop a critical and forward-looking perspective on cross-cutting issues and emerging strategic topics, at regional, transatlantic and global levels of analysis.

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Main career opportunities

Career opportunities are mainly in the defense, security and economic intelligence sectors, particularly around emerging issues (cyber-defense, intelligence and risk management) within organizations such as :

• Ministry of the Armed Forces (civilian defense analysts) and other government ministries (Interior, Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, Economy)
• Government agencies (SGDSN, ANSSI, DGRIS)
• National and international NGOs
• International organizations (UN, OSCE) and European agencies
• National and European parliaments (assistants and analysts)
• Local authorities (economic intelligence)
• Think tanks, research and information centers (defense-security analysts and consultants)
• Industrial and commercial companies (public affairs officers) in the defense, armaments, energy and transport sectors, consulting and risk analysis companies (due diligence consultants)

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Heads of the SIGR major

Editorial by the heads of the major

Armed conflicts, cyber attacks, hybrid threats, transnational crime… These are just a few of the key words associated with the theme of international security in the media. Are we living in an era of increasing threats and risks? Or is this perception an indirect effect of the growing adoption of foresight tools and anticipation systems by public and private players?

To answer this question, it is not only more necessary than ever to study the multi-disciplinary knowledge available, beyond the established boundaries of the various social science disciplines. It is also necessary to understand the ways in which private and public players perceive, analyze and act in so-called crisis and emergency situations (through time-constrained role-playing exercises, information processing and collaboration between teams and institutions). This calls for a dialogue between two forms of knowledge that are often perceived as not very compatible: on the one hand, university research in the social sciences, which enables us to develop the necessary analytical distance and to go beyond these analytical perspectives in order to respond to the growing media pressure surrounding current events; and on the other hand, public and private decision-making processes, whose priorities and constraints often remain poorly understood.

In a national, European and international context characterized by growing political and social polarization, the SIGR major aims to impart essential professional skills, through constructive dialogue with practitioners. Above all, it aims to build bridges of understanding between the assertively independent academic worlds of anticipation and prevention, and those of economic, political, military and humanitarian decision-making. It is only in this way that the challenges of international security in the 21st century, perceived or real, can be tackled with lucidity.

Sami Makki and Éric Sangar