On 23 March, a French delegation including the French Counsellor of International Economics, the president of the international commission MEDEF, Philippe Verbert, the director of the MBA Programme Department at ISC Paris Business School, Charles Berger, and the manager of the Business Bridge project, Natalia Lanceraux, visited the university. The main goal of the visit was the official opening of the new joint double degree programme – Executive MBA”.
In the morning, a meeting between French and Russian organisers of the programme and the first participants of the programme was held in the VSU’s conference hall. Charles Berger welcomed the audience and explained that the assessment of the quality of education in accordance with the accreditation of the international organisation AACSB (Quality charter) requires face-to-face interactions between the organisers of academic programmes and their participants.
‘A distinguishing characteristic of the education offered by ISC Paris Business School is the correlation between the academic aspect of education and the needs and the demands of companies. It should also be mentioned that auditors of the accreditation organisation highly praised continuous collaboration between ISC Paris Business School and the business community which proves that our university has reached a high level of development. Only 800 business schools out of 20 thousand institutions all over the world have this prestigious accreditation. It means a lot. I would like to thank those who have enrolled for the programme – its pioneers – for your confidence in us,’ said Charles Berger.
Charles Berger highly praised the work that has been done by the highly qualified team of VSU's business school and the eagerness of the teachers to cooperate constructively. The director of the business school, Svetlana Klinova, emphasised once again that this exclusive educational programme will allow to extend existing professional competencies and to acquire new ones, which will contribute to the increase of the companies’ competitiveness.
The potential participants of the programme present at the meeting shared their impressions of the way the educational process is organised and of their expectations of the course. They also asked some questions.
The meeting was followed by the official opening ceremony of the double degree programme that took place in the small conference hall of the Voronezh Government. The head of the Voronezh administration, Aleksandr Gusev, gave a welcoming speech:
‘It is a great honour for me to meet you in Voronezh and to cooperate with active and dynamic colleagues from Paris. Your initiative has led to a wonderful result – a joint educational programme. Today, new knowledge is vital for Russia as we would like to build our own economy and to become integrated into the world economy. From my part, I will do everything to promote this programme.’
‘On the one hand, the double degree programme will contribute to the economical development of some companies which representatives will take part in the programme. On the other hand, these companies will play a big part in the development of the region’s economy,’ said Philippe Verbert.
The director of the MBA Programme Department at ISC Paris Business School, Charles Berger, said he was proud that it is the first MBA programme in Russia implemented in the Russian language that received international AACSB accreditation:
‘It will have an enormous influence and will improve the image of the university and will fundamentally change the process of recertification, control, and self-control of the quality of training. Our mission is to provide Russian specialists with knowledge that will help them develop a global view of the world's economy and the development of the company in the context of globalisation processes.’
The rector of VSU, Dmitry Endovitsky, also gave a talk during the discussion of “Russian and French experience in the area of Russian business education”:
‘Our joint educational programme is a humanitarian innovation which is going to change the educational framework of our region and the neighbouring regions. We hope that cooperation in the area of education will continue in future and that there will appear French investors who will be ready to implement innovative projects in cooperation with Voronezh companies. France has been a long-standing international partner of VSU. We have had strong ties with a number of French universities.’
Then, Philippe Verbert talked in more detail about the importance of the Executive MBA double degree programme for the development of business. Then a participant of the programme, the development director of OAO Voronezh Confectionery, Evgeny Soldatov, expressed his gratitude to the organisers of the programme and talked about his expectations.
Background information:
In 2016, VSU and the ISC Paris Business School opened the double degree Executive MBA programme.
EMBA is an international postgraduate organizational management programme. It is aimed at a wide audience of people interested in receiving an international degree for business or career development. The programme is aimed at improving the professional competence of top managers, learning new skills, and encouraging further development.
The duration of the course is one year (six months will be dedicated to theoretical studies and the other six months – to the externship). |The graduates of the programme will get two diplomas: one from VSU and one from ISC Paris Business School. The language of the course is Russian and French.
