Professor Isabelle Ferreras is a sociologist and political scientist researching and teaching about work, firms, social change, and the contradiction between capitalism and democracy. She is Research Director (directrice de recherches) of the Belgian National Fund for Scientific Research in Brussels (FNRS-Fonds de la recherche scientifique), professor extraordinaire of sociology at the University of Louvain, member of the Institute IACCHOS_CridDIS_TED (Travail, entreprise, démocratie). She is Senior Research Associate of the Center for Labor and a Just Economy at Harvard Law School, where she teaches in the executive Trade Union Program. She is also a Distinguished Research Fellow of the Institute for Ethics in Artificial Intelligence at Oxford University. She coordinates www.DemocratizingWork.org, the global network of scholars and activists committed to 3 principles: democratizing firms, decommodifying labor and decarbonizing and remediating the planet. She is also an elected member of the Royal Academy of Sciences, Humanities, and the Arts of Belgium, of which she was President in 2021 and 2022, and has written many books and scientific articles, in particular explaining why firms are best understood as political entities, and why we should democratize firms if we want to move toward a sustainable and democratic future.
Among her most recent books: Democratizar la empresa capitalista. Piedra angular de una prosperidad compartida y sostenible, (2024, Ariadna, Santiago de Chile, trad: Sebastián Pérez Sepúlveda) ; Democratizing the Corporation: The Bicameral Firm and Beyond (with Tom Malleson and Joel Rogers ed.) (2024, Verso, NYC/London), Democratize Work. The Case for reorganizing the Economy (with Julie Battilana and Dominique Méda ed.) (2022, Chicago, The University of Chicago Press)
Websites:
E-mail: ferreras@alum.mit.edu