EQUIS Has Now Accredited 105 Business Schools
BRUSSELS, Belgium, Feb. 28 /Xinhua-PRNewswire/ -- On Tuesday, 27th February, 8 schools were awarded EQUIS accreditation, which takes the number of accredited schools to 105 across 30 countries --
-- Amsterdam Business School, University of Amsterdam, Netherlands
-- CERAM Sophia Antipolis, France
-- Faculty of Business, City University of Hong Kong, China
-- Faculty of Business, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, China
-- Faculty of Business, University of Victoria, Canada
-- ICN -- Business School, France
-- Korea University Business School, Korea
-- Vienna University of Economics & Business Administration, Austria
Prof. Eric Cornuel, CEO of EFMD said, "From its inception, EQUIS has targeted top-quality international business schools and we are delighted to welcome 8 more leading schools into the EQUIS community. EQUIS started as a European initiative for the benchmarking and accreditation of business schools but it is now the leading global accreditation system. A distinctive feature of EQUIS is closely related to its European origin: appreciation for diversity and in one decade EQUIS has had an enormously positive impact on the quality of management education worldwide."
EQUIS was created in 1997 by a mandate of EFMD's member business schools including Bocconi, HEC Paris, IESE, IMD, INSEAD, ESADE, London Business School, and Rotterdam School of Management. It was inspired by the need to develop an INTERNATIONAL accreditation system for those business schools, wherever they were in the world that were trying to make an impact beyond their domestic frontiers.
In designing EQUIS, EFMD responded to the needs faced by international business schools that AACSB, AMBA or any other national accreditation scheme were not satisfying or likely to satisfy in the foreseeable future. This remains a key objective of EQUIS: to provide differential value over other accreditation systems to a highly select number of world business schools that strive for excellence.
Business schools that are accredited by EQUIS must demonstrate not only high quality in all dimensions of their activities, but a high degree of internationalization. EQUIS also believes that business schools should be as closely connected to the real world of business as schools of medicine are to working hospitals. There must be a balance between high academic quality and the professional relevance provided by close interaction with the corporate world.
Prof. Julio Urgel, the Director of EQUIS said, "Today is a special milestone for EQUIS reaching over 100 accredited schools. The 100th school to be accredited was actually the City University of Hong Kong and for the first time we also welcome a school from Korea (Korea University Business School) into the EQUIS community. We embrace the diversity all the new schools bring to the network and believe this is what makes EQUIS the most sophisticated and innovative improvement and benchmarking tool available for management education."
More information is available at http://www.efmd.org/equis .
About EFMD
EFMD advances excellence in management development in Europe and worldwide by building links between leading business schools and companies, creating and disseminating knowledge on best practices and changing trends and providing access to benchmarking tools and accreditations (EQUIS, EPAS, CEL, CLIP). With more than 600 member organizations from academia, business, public service and consultancy in 70 countries, EFMD provides a unique forum for information, research, networking and debate on innovation and best practice in management development.
