Research Intern

ValueCo is a mission-driven company that aims to explicitly integrate environmental, social and human criteria into company performance and market valuations. We are developing the first SaaS solution to collect proprietary ESG ratings from investors and provide market analyses to asset managers, institutional investors, and corporates.

Our collaborative model and cutting-edge research make us the only player to collect and leverage asset managers' internal opinions. This model enables us to draw on the collective intelligence of responsible investors to improve market practices.

We are already working with over 40 banks and asset managers and launched our web platform in April 2023. In late 2024, we raised a seed funding round to expand the team.

What's special about ValueCo?

We are a highly committed team working with a wide range of actors to achieve a transition towards a more sustainable and ambitious approach to finance both in Europe and abroad.

We are a Finance Innovation Label Awardee, a signatory to the UN Principles for Responsible Investment, a member of The Good AI community and an alumni of the Techstars "Future of Finance" accelerator.

More details are available on ValueCo's website.

As a Sustainable Finance Research Intern, your role will be to help us develop new methodologies and algorithms to explicitly integrate sustainability criteria into investment decisions. We are exploring the influence of ESG factors on the risk, short- and long-term performance, reputation and stakeholder impact of the companies we assess.

We work on these subjects internally, but also with external partners such as MIT, HEC Montréal, Grenoble Ecole de Management, the EDHEC, Mirova, Nordea AM, or ABN AMRO. Depending on the topic you choose to address, you will be able to work and interact with researchers from these institutions.

We don't expect you to already have all the skills of an expert in sustainable finance, but you should be prepared to learn and progress where necessary! Your tasks can include

• Monitoring the state of the art in your field of research,
• Proposing hypotheses and methodologies to address the issues we define together,
• Developing and coding algorithms in Python to be implemented in our systems,
• Synthesising the results and writing reports and white papers,
• If your results allow it, writing or co-authoring a scientific article, in-house or with one of our partners.
• Attending events, congresses and conferences with the founding and research teams to meet the sustainable finance ecosystem.
  

This list may evolve according to your wishes and company needs!

Research topics

We are already working on some of these topics, so if you are interested we can share our progress to date with you to give you a better idea of the issues involved:

• How can we detect and correct evaluation bias in extra-financial ratings?
• How can we simultaneously optimise a portfolio on the basis of risk, return, ESG performance and the strength of the market consensus?
• Are responsible investors succeeding in limiting their negative externalities? Generating a positive impact?
• How can greenwashing be detected from a market view of ESG ratings?
• What impact does ESG performance have on a company's financial performance?
• Do good ESG practices make companies more resilient?
• How do professional investors interpret and transform rating agency scores in order to adapt them to their investment thesis?

If you can think of another topic that you'd like to tackle and for which our databases could be useful, don't hesitate to suggest it so that we can discuss it.

• You are looking for a 6-month internship starting early 2025.
• You are enrolled in a Master’s degree in Data Science, Finance, Statistics or Econometrics.
• You have good coding skills, particularly in Python (mastery of data science libraries such as Pandas and Scikit-learn is a plus) and SQL.
• You enjoy quantitative analysis and open, cross-disciplinary problems.
• You have a self-starter attitude with a willingness to learn and adapt.
• You are interested in sustainable development and believe finance has a role to play in the transition. Understanding of data and analytics solutions, sustainable finance, and financial markets is a plus.
• You are keen to find out more about sustainable finance and make it the new norm!

• 12-15 k€ fix salary,
• Flexible remote working policy,
• Physical offices in the Climate House in Paris,
• Restaurant vouchers, public transport passes,
• Opportunity to publish in peer reviewed journals,
• Continuous training depending on the needs.

Once you have submitted your application, enclosing an up-to-date CV we will contact you for a series of three interviews:

1. A 30-minute visio call to tell you more about ValueCo and answer your initial questions. 
2. Depending on your experience, we may send you a quick technical test to complete before the next interview. 
3. A one-hour interview, face-to-face if possible
4. A final 30-minute interview to discuss our corporate culture and answer your final questions.