2023: EQUAL MEETING IN PARIS AND TOUR DE TABLE
The EQUAL member associations met on November 10th, 2023, to discuss the future direction of the EQUAL network. Eleven members gathered to focus mainly on sustainability’s importance in management education. Hosted by CDEFM (Conférence des Directeurs des Ecoles Françaises de Management) at Grenoble Ecole de Management’s new Paris campus, the meeting highlighted sustainability as a key agenda for the network’s development.
As part of the agenda, the meeting included a “Tour de Table” session, where each member shared updates and news from their respective networks.
Tour de Table – November 2023
AABS
- Became an official member of the European Commission Directorate-General for International Partnerships Steering Committee for Youth Mobility for Africa Flagship.
- AABS has welcomed new members from the following new countries: Mauritius, Rwanda, Austria, Canada, Portugal, Switzerland, USA, and Cameroon.
- The 2023 AABS African Deans and Directors Forum will take place in Mauritius from 15 to 17 November 2023, hosted by CLBS.
- The 2024 AABS Connect Conference will take place in Johannesburg from 29 to 31 May 2024, hosted by GIBS.
- Officially, the AABS network as of October 2023 is composed of more than 80 members.
- AABS now has five AABS Accredited schools.
- AACSB International
- New CEO since June: Lily Bi. Working on a new strategic plan for the organization.
- EMEA conference in Rome later this month, Deans Conference in Barcelona in February.
- State of Accreditation report 2023.
- Agreements with national QA bodies in France and Korea.
ABS Finland
- Student admissions is once again under discussion on national level. There is a push to decrease the number of different admission tests across the whole university field across disciplines. Business schools already have a joint admissions test to BSc level, but discussions are underway, if there is more to do. At the moment 60% of students are admitted based on their matriculation exam results and the rest based on their performance in the joint exam for the field of business administration.
- Business schools are discussing why the gender balance is skewed towards males on the BSc level (37% of new students are female on average across the schools, ranging between 27% and 44%). On MSc level it is 57% female (between 48% and 74%)
- The government is expanding PhD education and awarding funding for 1000 new PhD students to start their work as part of faculty on fixed term contracts. 800 places go to fields that are designated as flagship fields of the Academy of Finland and 200 are freely open to universities to submit their applications.
AMBA & BGA
- Global Conference announced for May 2024 in Budapest
- Gala Dinner on 19th January in London
- BGA European Capacity Building Workshop 4th December in Sofia
- BGA USA Capacity Building Workshop 26th January in Miami
- BGA has passed 250 members; 39 accredited and 8 validated schools since its launch in 2019.
CDEFM – Conférence des Directeurs des Écoles Françaises de Management
- 11 expert committees now working within the group – each bringing together representatives of schools across the network : Rankings -Communication – Deans – Continuing education – Pedagogical innovations – Legal & compliance – Quality & accreditation – Research – Corporate relations – International relations – Ecological and social transition
- Upcoming dates:
- November, the CDEFM will be heard by the French National Assembly on private for-profit education
- November: Duo Days: For the past three years, the Bureau National des Étudiants en école de Management (BNEM) has been organizing the DuoDay in Management Schools, in collaboration with La fédé 100% handinamique (la Fédé). With DuoDay, a high-school student with a disability is welcomed by a business school student for a day to discover the courses and activities offered by our schools. The aim is twofold: to introduce high-school students to the Écoles de Management and, more broadly, to higher education, and to raise students’ awareness of disability issues, particularly by combating prejudices about disability.
- December : Participation in the National TEDS (Ecological Transition and Sustainable Development) day in Montpellier.
- March: webinar to present the SD&RS competency framework guidance document
- May: Colloquium on International Relations for schools
- Other News:
- Creation of a student life task force: subjects covered: promotion of student commitment and access to healthcare.
- Translation of the DDRS competency framework into English
- Drafting of a white paper on green/student mobility
- Study in progress on the expectations and employability of international students (https://cdefm1.sharepoint.com/:w:/s/CDEFM-CoDexRelationsInternationales/ESdqyESqb3ZMifwZju3ynzkBHVbuio088REHYYCVRXlEsQ?e=1V5TFI)
- Drafting of a welcome guide for international students
- Expert committee working on the jungle of labels (explain what each label stands for, to make it easier for students and their families to understand).
- CDEFM takes part in the Ministry’s TEDS consultation workshops on faculty training
- Lobbying on the subject of
- apprenticeship tax collection
- private higher education
- competency blocks (France Compétences and MESR)
CLADEA (Latinamerica Council of Business Schools)
- Anual 2024 Conference – Perú , Arequipa City. 16-18 October.
- Mexico 2025 Anual Conference Octobre.
- Deans Workshop . Rio de Janeiro – Brazil- August
- Centre America Networking Event , Sept 2024 , 15th.
- Spain , 14-15 Feb 2024 , Latam Europe Academic Conection. ESIC Campus , Madrid.
- We recieved 25 new members last week in Cordoba Argentina in our Anual Assambly meeting. Grow to 33 Countries , including India , China and Croatia as new countries. Now having 270 Institutional members in our network.
- New President Elected , Dr Monica Lopez , from CETYS University en México ( until 2025).
- Our Call for papers recieved + 500 to be revised. Final resulted 250 for the annual congress.
- Looking for new alliances to reinforce LATAM members conexion to Europe , Africa and Asia.
- Cladea Journal is managed by Emerald Publishing- “Academia – Revista Latinoamerica de Administración” ISSN 1012-8255
EDAMBA
- EIASM-EDAMBA CONSORTIUM Doctoral Supervision and the New Global Research Landscape
- Dates: January 10-12, 2023, Venue: ESADE, Barcelona, Spain, Application deadline: November 30, 2023
EFMD Global
- Global deans conference – Amsterdam Feb 6-7
- Quality assurance, accreditation & impact conference – Liverpool May 13-15
- Annual conference – Bologna June 9-11
- EFMD Management series – Routledge (2nd Research Volume of Global Focus – Business School Research : Excellence, Academic Quality and Positive Impact
- Annual Spanish & Chinese issues of Global Focus just published
- 30th Anniversary of CEIBS in 2024
- Leading a Business School book available Open Access via Routledge
- RRBM – update (EFMD & AACSB) founding partners & board members
FNEGE
- New journal in management meta database which development is supported by FNEGE https://www.scanlitt.com/en/dataman/
- New podcast series “Grand Oral AEF info * FNEGE” where we interview business schools deans and managers on current strategic topics : https://fnege-medias.fr/rechercher/?_recherche_par_nom=grand+oral
IAE France
- IAE France SD-CSR repository
- Finalization of the SD-CSR knowledge and skills framework/repository. Previously, a very important work of aggregation of all the standards relating to sustainability and environmental transitions was carried out in order to preserve what was most relevant for the IAEs. The working bases were: Jouzel-Abbadie reports (2022), ClimatSup Business (The Shift Project, 2022), the “L’Entreprise Full-RSE” study (Enterprise Institute, FNEGE and PwC France and Maghreb , 2022), the Climate Plan (MESR, 2022), the SD and CSR Master Plan (French Ministry of HER, 2023), the framework note (French Ministry of HER, 2023), the GreenComp benchmarks (European Union, 2022), INRS (2022) , CDEFM (2023) and UVED (in progress).
- This prerequisite work allowed the working group to identify areas not present in the repositories and yet essential for management sciences. Two versions were produced, one for general public distribution, the other for internal distribution to support all IAEs in their environmental transition projects. The objective is to enable each IAE to play its essential role in shaping a better future by training a new generation of leaders and managers aware of sustainability issues and capable of making informed decisions for a more sustainable future.
- This framework is currently in the internal validation process and must receive final validation in mid-November before full communication.
- IAE France Educational resource center
- Development of an educational resource center for DDRS with the same approach. Identification of existing resources and creation of additional resources by IAE France and the Digital University dedicated to Management, AUNEGe.
- IAE France Annual Conference
- Preparation of the IAE France community Confernece, organized every two years, AGORA IAE FRANCE 2024, which must focus on the impacts of IAEs for societal transitions
UNL – Universities of The Netherlands
- For students, a renewed grant system was reinstalled this year after a 8-year period of a loan system that did not work out properly for students. During the loan system, many students created huge debts that after their studies hampered them to start building up their lives e.g. by limited options for getting a mortgage for buying a house. The new reintroduced grant system will give them more options.
- Once again, political discussions are held on the intake of international students at Universities. Many parties feel that intakes are currently too high, from a finance point of view but also for practical housing reasons. Universities should have more room for controlling the numbers, but also new rules and financial incentives should prohibit further growth or even decline of international student intake. There is pressure to return to Dutch spoken programmes as a default with English spoken tracks as an option.
- Dutch universities take a more critical stance towards global university rankings. Rankings are still viewed as important instruments to be able to determine ones place among the world’s top universities and serve as potential powerful recruitment instruments, but the current ranking methodologies are not seen anymore as doing justice to the breadth of work that universities do. As a consequence, universities will be using these rankings less frequently, and will contribute to the development of – multidimensional – alternatives.
- The Council of dean’s economics and business (representing the 14 schools of economics and business) has published a joint impact agenda with an open access booklet in September 2023. Title: The Challenges of Transition. Economics and Business Science for Sustainable Prosperity. Fulltext is here: https://zenodo.org/records/10019977. The launch was accompanied with a “dean’s impact forum” on 22 september 2023. Link to the linkedin post by the chair Prof Peter Verhoef on the event: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/peter-verhoef-96b59a3_yesterday-we-had-our-second-impact-forum-activity-7118674692781039616-g5Zr/