Jérôme BLANC is full professor in Economics at Sciences Po Lyon since 2015, previously Associate professor at Université Lumière Lyon 2 (1999-2015).

His works deal with money and the plurality of its forms and practices, mainly analyzed through socioeconomic viewpoint and history of ideas.

Interested in monetary plurality, he published Les monnaies parallèles. Unité et diversité du fait monétaire (Paris : L’Harmattan, 2000). He focuses especially on a particular dimension of monetary plurality, that is, alternative, complementary, community or local currencies. On this subject, he co-authored Une économie sans argent : les systèmes d’échange local (SEL) (Paris : Seuil, 1999, directed by J.-M. Servet), edited Monnaies sociales : Exclusion et liens financiers, rapport 2005-06 (Paris : Economica, 2006) and published Les monnaies alternatives (Repères, 2018). He then coedited with Bruno Théret the book La Monnaie entre unicité et pluralité : explorations théoriques et empiriques (Classiques Garnier, 2026).

He organized the first international academic conference on this topic in February 2011, in Lyons. In 2015, he co-founded RAMICS (Research Association on Monetary Innovation and Community and Complementary currency systems), and served as its first president (2015-19). He is a member of the Editorial board of the International Journal of Community Currency Research (IJCCR).

Regarding the history of ideas, he notably worked on Jean Bodin’s monetary writings, published with Ludovic Desmedt the collective book Les pensées monétaires dans l’histoire : l’Europe, 1517-1776 (Classiques Garnier, 2014) and an anthology of French-speaking institutionalist monetary theories: Institutionalist Theories of money. An Anthologie of the French School (Palgrave McMillan, 2020), translated from the French (Presses universitaires de France, 2016) (also translated in Spanish and Chinese).

Drawing on the case of community currencies, his works also deal with social and solidarity economy and socio-economics. He coedited the collective book Les contributions des coopératives à une économie plurielle (L’Harmattan, 2012, with Denis Colongo), Tensions sur les ressources. L’économie sociale en recomposition (Presses universitaires de Louvain, 2018, with Emilie Lanciano and Damien Sauze), and the book Pour une socioéconomie engagée : monnaie, finance et alternatives (Classiques Garnier, 2018) under the collective name of Farinet (with Isabelle Guérin, Isabelle Hillenkamp, Solène Morvant-Roux and Hadrien Saiag). He collaborates to the Chair of Social and solidarity economy of the Université Lumière Lyon 2 and is a member of the Francophone inter-university network of social and solidarity economy (RIUESS).

What have been your journey leading you to RULE?

I started teaching at RULE in 2007.

Can you describe how the course(s) you teach are relevant in the current context?

I teach the course on Social and solidarity economy. Such topic has long been an important matter in post-war Cambodia, due to the importance of NGOs in the country. Yet its centrality declined with the rise of ordinary business activities and the impressive growth experienced by Cambodia. Now SSE increasingly appears as a set of economic activities that support a turn toward sustainability and a fairer economic system. It is, as such, an important matter for the future of Cambodia’s economy.

Can you tell us about your experience as a teacher for an international program in Cambodia? 

This is a great experience that teaches lecturers that courses cannot be taught the same way everywhere.This is of course especially the case of my course on Social and Solidarity Economy, as well as for courses that deal with Sustainable development (I used to give this course too).

What do you like the most in teaching at RULE? 

The curiosity of students and when it comes to their mind that they already know many experiences of Social and solidarity economy.

Do you have any recommendations for future students and graduates?

Keep your mind open and your curiosity!