Dr Catherine Ris

President, University of New Caledonia

and Co-Chair PIURN

Dr Catherine Ris is Professor of Economics at the University of New Caledonia (UNC), she was elected President of UNC in 2021. She chairs the New Caledonia Research Consortium CRESICA and co-chairs the Pacific Islands Universities Regional Network PIURN. 

Catherine Ris is the first female president of the University of New Caledonia. She was elected on 10 August 2021.

She is a university professor of economics. After completing her PhD at the University of Lyon (France), she did postdoctoral research at Maastricht University (Netherlands). She holds an HDR (Habilitation à diriger des recherches, or accreditation to supervise research enabling the bearer to supervise PhD students) from the University of Paris-Est Marne-la-Vallée.

Since joining the UNC in 2003, she has been actively involved in developing the university's training programmes and research activities. For example, she headed the UNC's research team in law and economics from 2014 to 2021.

She returned to UNC in 2014 after spending a year at the Centre for Development Studies at the University of Auckland (New Zealand). In 2015, she created the UNC's University Institute of Technology (IUT), which she directed and developed for five years. From 2017 to 2021, she is Vice-President of UNC in charge of innovation, entrepreneurship and industrial partnerships, she develops ties between the academic institution and the economic sector, including the creation of a student entrepreneurship centre, and worked actively to develop futher partnerships with the private sector (creation of the Club Entreprises, coordination of the University Foundation, etc.).

Her main research interests are development economics, labour economics and education economics, with a particular focus on the evaluation of public policies aimed at reducing inequalities. She also supervises PhD students on these topics.