Win­ner of im­pact award: I want to make a dif­fer­ence

He started out as a lawyer. Then he replaced that title with a longer one: Associate Professor of International Political Economy.  Later, he became the father of two daughters, Elva and Vera, who are now six and ten years old.

It is not entirely wrong to suggest that all three factors have contributed to Cornel Ban winning the DSEB Societal Impact Award 2025, which is presented to a CBS researcher whose research makes a particularly strong difference to society. 

All three have influenced a journey that has taken him from his home country of Romania to the United States and back to Europe and Denmark.

“When I was a legal practitioner, it was natural for me to focus on the society I was part of. I have kept that approach as a researcher as well. I want my knowledge to make a difference for others, and that is why I am deeply honoured to receive the DSEB Societal Impact Award,” says Cornel Ban.

Provisions or political economy?

Today, he is an associate professor of international political economy specialising in China, but back in 1998 he completed a law degree at Babeș-Bolyai University in Romania. 

After a few years in Romanian courtrooms, a desire to further his education within international law took him to the United States. However, he soon realised that international economics was more exciting than international legal provisions.

This led him to do a PhD in international political economy at University of Maryland, a few metro stations away from the institutions of American power in DC. This was followed by a postdoc at Brown University and a permanent teaching post at Boston University in Massachusetts.

“I had a really good time in the United States. I was able to immerse myself in my research, but at the same time Europe was pulling me back. By then, I had become a father, and I started thinking about what kind of future my daughter was facing – particularly with the climate crisis in mind,” Cornel Ban explains.

Got a job at CBS

“I had reached a point where I felt secure in my career, and I wanted to work on some of the big questions that matter to society and our planet,” he says.

He therefore returned to Europe with his family, where Cornel Ban sensed a stronger focus on the green transition. He joined Copenhagen Business School, where he has since worked with finance, climate and geopolitics from an economic perspective.

It is a choice he is very pleased with for several reasons.  One added benefit is that his Icelandic partner has also found a position as faculty. He is also drawn to the Scandinavian way of life and the architecture of historic Copenhagen. But above all, he is passionate about his research field – and with good reason.

“Few CBS researchers can match Cornel Ban’s political impact, as his research has shaped debates on economic strategy at the highest level in Europe and globally,” the nomination for the DSEB Societal Impact Award states.

What can we learn from China?

For instance, he spent time this summer in Washington as an external expert  for the International Monetary Fund’s Internal Evaluation Office, evaluating the past decade of fiscal policy.

He has also been invited by the OECD Centre for Entrepreneurship to give keynotes on Chinese finance and industrial policy.  His research into Chinese industrial policy and the country’s state investment funds is an area that also attracts interest from the European Commission.

“I am currently drafting a report for the second largest group in the European Parliament on what policy lessons we can adapt to European democracies from China in terms of green technology leadership without depending on China’s single party state features. It is a country that has developed very rapidly in technological terms, especially when it comes to the technologies needed by the green transition,” says Cornel Ban.

“China’s progress is no longer driven by cheap labour but by a financial and strategic planning ecosystem that, in many cases, is far more successful than Europe’s when it comes to moving from innovation to large-scale commercial production. And many of these giant companies that crowd their European peers out of the global market are only a few years old,” he adds.

On rural Romanian roads

Although the examples above involve advising public organisations, Cornel Ban’s research often includes private companies in Denmark, Germany, France and Romania.

This interview, for example, takes place online while the associate professor is behind the wheel, trying to navigate rural Romanian roads. He has not worked in his home country for fifteen years, but as a side project he is visiting a local circular economy company that has grown to become Eastern Europe’s largest recyclers of hard plastic.

“It is interesting because the company started under socialist conditions that in some ways resemble those in China. Since then, it has had to operate under capitalist conditions and has been so good at it that they bought their Austrian competitors,” he says, as he finds the ramp to a motorway.

His next stop is Brussels, where he will meet with international business leaders and European Commission policymakers to discuss how Europe can accelerate the green transition.