The Cournot Centre for Economic Studies operates under the direction of Robert Solow, Nobel Laureate in Economics, and Jean-Louis Beffa, Chairman of the Compagnie de Saint-Gobain. It is guided in its activities by a scientific advisory board bringing together academics from various social sciences.

Masahiko Aoki	Masahiko Aoki is professor emeritus of economics at Stanford University. He is the president of the International Economic Association (2008–2011) and was a former president of the Japanese Economic Association. In 2007, he created the Virtual Center for Advanced Studies in Institutions, based in Tokyo. He founded the Research Centre of the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (M.E.T.I.) in 2001 and served as its director until 2004. Professor Aoki has been an adviser on developmental issues at the World Bank since 1997. He was awarded the Joseph Schumpeter Prize in 1998.
Robert Boyer	Robert Boyer is an economist at the Centre pour la Recherche Économique et ses Applications à Paris and at the Groupe de Recherche en Droit, Économie et Gestion, a research centre specializing in economic law and management based in Nice. He is also professor honoris causa at Buenos Aires University and at the University of Leuven in Belgium. Professor Boyer is President of the Association Recherche et Régulation.
Bernard Gazier	Bernard Gazier is a member of the Institut Universitaire de France. He is a professor of economics at the University of Paris-I (Panthéon-Sorbonne) and a researcher at the Centre for Economics M.A.T.I.S.S.E.–C.E.S. (a joint research unit of the University of Paris 1 and the French National Centre for Scientific Research). He is also the President of the Société de Port-Royal.
Inge Kaul	Inge Kaul is a professor at the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin and acts as policy adviser to various think tanks and international organizations. She was the first director of the United Nations Development Program (U.N.D.P.) Human Development Report Office, a position that she held from 1989 to 1994. She was director of the U.N.D.P.’s Office of Development Studies until 2005.
Hans-Helmut Kotz	Hans-Helmut Kotz is a senior fellow at Goethe University’s Center for Financial Studies, chair of its Research Advisory Council, and an honorary professor at the University of Freiburg. He has served on the Executive Board of the Deutsche Bundesbank, the European Parliament’s Expert Group on Financial Markets, and various committees of the Bank for International Settlements and of the O.E.C.D., where he is acting chair of the Financial Markets Committee. Hans-Helmut Kotz is currently a visiting professor at Harvard University (Center for European Studies).
Thierry Martin	Thierry Martin is a professor of the philosophy of science at the University of Franche-Comté in Besançon, France. He is the director of the Centre for Philosophical Research on the Logic of Action and a researcher at the Institute for History, Philosophy of Science and Technology in France. Professor Martin is president of the Société de Philosophie des Sciences and the co-editor of the complete works of Augustin Cournot.
Robert Solow	Robert Solow is Institute Professor Emeritus of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1987, he received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics for his contributions to economic growth theory, and, in 1999, the U.S. National Medal of Science. He is a former president of the American Academy of Sciences and of the Econometrics Society. He is the Robert K. Merton Scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation.