Olivier Borraz is a research director at the CNRS at the Center for the Sociology of Organizations (CNRS-Sciences Po). His career began with a comparative study of local government, before shifting toward the sociology of risk. He has focused in particular on the emergence of health and environmental risks, the creation of public health agencies, and decision-making processes in public health. His work then shifted to the uses of risk in public policy as regulatory tools, within a comparative European framework. His current research focuses on crisis management as a new form of governance. Drawing on the sociologies of organizations, the state, and crises, he studies how crisis has become a new category of public action. He has led numerous missions for public health agencies, served on expert panels, contributed to the administration and coordination of research—notably as director of the CSO and, more recently, as chair of an ANR evaluation committee—and founded the CrisisLab in 2023, a forum for dialogue between researchers and practitioners in crisis management. He has published and edited numerous books and articles. He teaches at Sciences Po, where he serves as the academic director of the master’s program in Territorial and Urban Strategies.
