2025 Intakes at emlyon: committing to health and well-being
Under the banner of SDG No. 3 “Health and well-being,” emlyon business school welcomed 3,500 new students during its 2025 intake. Inaugural lectures, Impact Days, and a variety of events such as the Responsible Engagement Program forum punctuated September, setting the tone for a year guided by commitment.
Health and well-being for all, at every age: the guiding theme of emlyon’s academic intake
Anchored in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal No. 3 (SDG 3) — “Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages” — the 2025–2026 academic year at emlyon business school reflects a strong focus on responsibility and action. This guiding thread shaped all highlights and integration activities throughout September, bringing together over 3,500 new students across 22 intake ceremonies held on the Lyon and Paris campuses as well as online.
(Re)live the highlights of the intake
Each program benefited from a dedicated induction pathway, including inaugural lectures for students in the Master in Manager - Grande École (MiM), the Global BBA (GBBA), and the Masters & MSc, along with program presentations and Impact days.
In parallel, September featured several unifying events: Welcome Days for all international students, student association fairs for the PGE and GBBA, the integration fortnight, awareness days on gender-based and sexual violence (GBSV), and the Responsible Engagement Program forum. These moments helped to bring first-year students together, encourage connections and exchanges, and immerse them in the spirit of emlyon from their arrival through to graduation, embedding their integration in a collective and civic-minded dynamic.
All of the School’s teams join me in congratulating you on your admission or progression within emlyon business school. Beyond technical and professional skills, we aim to equip you intellectually and culturally, giving you the keys to understand the world, society, and businesses — and to transform them.
The four inaugural lectures gave powerful expression to SDG 3, with distinguished personalities from the fields of health and well-being invited to share their perspectives and experiences in addressing these global challenges:
Alain Mérieux, President of Institut Mérieux and Fondation Mérieux, and Lugan Flacher, CEO of Drugoptimal — MiM intake: “For a biology without borders serving public health.”
Raymond Le Moign, Director General of the Hospices Civils de Lyon : “Is a health policy possible? Can health create value?”
Anne Kuhm (MSc 21), former gymnast with the French Olympic team and author on mental health in sports — Global BBA intake: “Sport, mental health and life: striving for sustainable balance.”
Clément Chauvet, Head of Strategic Engagement and External Relations, International Agency for Research on Cancer — MSc intake: “Global Collaboration for Cancer Prevention: a UN Perspective.”
Watch the interviews with the speakers: “3 Questions to…”
These inaugural sessions anchored the new academic year in a collective reflection on global public health, individual balance, and well-being more broadly, in direct resonance with emlyon’s strategic commitments in the field of healthcare.
Local impact missions addressing SDG 3 challenges
emlyon’s distinctive pedagogy is characterized by the close link it weaves between reflection and action. True to this model and to its status as a Mission-driven company, the School co-designed a unique experience for its new students: Impact days. These induction days invite all first-year students, across all programs, to take immediate and concrete action in support of social causes. For the 2025 intake, twelve Impact Days were organized between September 3 and November 5 on the Lyon and Paris campuses, structured around the theme of SDG 3 and broken down into 25 missions.
Some highlights from the 4,784 missions carried out by students include:
Over 2,500 students completed a mental health check-up with Sapiens;
350 participants attended a workshop on stress management and musculoskeletal disorder prevention;
Over 2,000 letters written for isolated elderly people;
150 social outreach patrols conducted;
Over 100 social media posts created to promote Nightline;
4,000 period products collected for the Foyer Notre-Dame des Sans-Abri;
60,000 cigarette butts collected and recycled with Cy-Clope through 200 cleanwalks.
These Impact days fully embody our status as a Mission-driven company. They remind us that integration at emlyon is not only about discovering a campus, but about engaging in a broader journey: not just training competent managers, but nurturing conscious leaders capable of driving positive impact.
The Responsible Engagement Program: anchoring pedagogy in real-world action
The Responsible Engagement Program (PER) is one of the flagship components of emlyon’s MiM - Grande École. Introduced in the very first year, it commits each student to a minimum of 50 hours of volunteer work with associations or public-interest organizations. As a core and mandatory element of the PGE curriculum, the PER grounds academic learning in real-world practice through social and environmental projects, exemplifying the School’s unique educational approach.
The annual PER Forum, held at the start of each academic year, connects students directly with associations seeking volunteers. The 2025 edition brought together 47 social and environmental impact associations (a 57% increase from 2024) across six key themes:
Fighting poverty and inequality
Promoting health and well-being
Ensuring access to quality education
Fostering inclusive and convivial cities
Preserving biodiversity
Working towards a zero-waste society
In total, 1,198 PGE students engaged with partner associations and identified their future volunteer missions.
The Responsible Engagement Program enables you to open up, to meet people beyond the emlyon ecosystem. It’s truly enriching.
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Healthcare: a strategic priority for emlyon
Health and well-being have become a strategic priority for emlyon. Positioned at the intersection of the Lyon ecosystem and international dynamics, the School pursues a structured approach through the Healthcare Innovation, Technology & Society Institute (HITS), its academic programs — MSc in Healthcare Innovation & Data Science, the biopharma track within the MiM, and international double degrees — as well as its Research, support for medtech and biotech entrepreneurship, and student-led initiatives.
By making SDG 3 the guiding theme of its 2025–2026 academic year, emlyon underscores the coherence between its pedagogical model, its Mission-driven status, and its strategic priorities. Through these commitments, the School confirms its ambition: to become the French leading business school on health-related issues and to contribute, through research and education, to transforming tomorrow’s ecosystems.