EDHEC MARKS ITS ENGAGEMENT IN FAVOUR OF FUTURE GENERATIONS! 

Impact on society, useful research and new learning models. 
At a time when business schools are being challenged to demonstrate their real utility to society, EDHEC is marking its engagement in favour of future generations via the School’s new “Impact Future Generations 2025” strategic plan, unveiled at today’s press conference. 

Underpinned by an ambitious investment plan amounting to some €230 million, the 2020-2025 strategic plan is set to drive an in-depth transformation of EDHEC:

1. through our research, by making EDHEC the go-to business school worldwide for sustainable finance and boosting our model of high-impact research serving industry and society;
2. through our programmes, by training EDHEC students and alumni ever-more eager to engage actively in major global transformations;
3. through our model, by engaging EDHEC in the technological and digital revolution, and making it a pivotal knowledge-transmission platform.

"Our ambition is to train talents capable of changing the business world so that it serves future generations. In a society where the jobs of tomorrow have yet to be imagined, the hybridisation of knowledge and the desire for impact will be major assets in training complete managers with the will to solve the big problems affecting society”, underlines Emmanuel Métais, Dean of EDHEC Business School."

This plan is consistent with selective growth in the number of enrolled students and an enhanced budget of €186 million in 2025, with this increase resulting from the innovations included in the strategic plan.

AN UNPRECEDENTED INCLUSIVE APPROACH: EDHEC TOMORROW

To prepare the strategic plan, EDHEC employed a fully-open approach designed to incorporate contributions from all stakeholders. The scope was unprecedented. Over 750 people contributed to the plan, via interviews and workshops, while close to 6,000 people – particularly students, professors and working graduates – submitted ideas through dialogue on the “EDHEC Tomorrow” platform.  

RESEARCH AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP SERVING A RESPONSIBLE ECONOMY

For the last 15 years, EDHEC has pursued an ambitious strategy geared to producing research with a high-impact on academic and professional circles, and which also generates a virtuous business model for the School. The creation of EDHEC-Risk Institute and then its spin-off Scientific Beta boosted the School’s profile and standing in finance, particularly in the asset management field. This January’s sale of Scientific Beta to Singapore Exchange Ltd. for USD200 million vindicates this model and its focus on producing useful research both for students and businesses.  

Underpinned by this success, EDHEC intends to continue the strategy of leveraging its research on an industrial scale by developing two new businesses: Scientific Infra and Fintech Scientific Analytics.

Scientific Infra aims to become the global reference for benchmarking infrastructure (infra) investments: valuations, risks and impacts, particularly in the environmental, social and governance (ESG) area.
Scientific Analytics seeks to create sizeable disruption in the market for risk measurement tools in the investment industry.

EDHEC wants to use its academic excellence to serve major causes affecting society, particularly the climate emergency. In light of this objective, the School has decided to set up a transversal Sustainable Finance research centre to address business-related societal issues for future generations. This will involve assembling the biggest base of financial data concerning climate risk for businesses. The scope of research will be multi-disciplinary, with the centre investigating the impact of global warming on the risks to businesses and their financial valuations, as well as on consumer behaviour, business models and physical risks.   

Thanks to the sale of Scientific Beta – a real accelerator for EDHEC’s ambitions – the School has also decided to launch an investment fund: EDHEC Ventures for Future Generations. The objective is to engage alongside EDHEC start-ups that are developing projects with a positive impact on society and related to climate change and ecological transition. The fund will support the most relevant and promising initiatives on these themes.

EDHEC IMAGINES INNOVATIVE TEACHING AND LEARNING METHODS TO TRAIN HYBRID PROFILES

The ability to adapt, knowing how to learn and knowing how to think will be assets for tomorrow’s graduates. EDHEC’s ambition is to extend its students’ horizons beyond the boundaries of management. For this purpose, innovative, multi-disciplinary, multi-channel teaching and learning methods will be employed and supported by several strong initiatives.    

EDHEC Business University Online will offer future graduates the keys to success in a fast-changing environment, by opening their minds to a large array of disciplines connected with subjects traditionally taught in business schools. This will involve setting up partnerships with leading international universities.

As from the start of the new academic year, students on all programmes will gradually have the chance as part of their curriculum to train in subjects of their choice embracing a broad array of disciplines: philosophy, ethics, law, chemistry, etc. In order to ensure a coherent pedagogical plan for their studies, students will be accompanied by mentors tasked with advising them on their choices according to their career objectives.  

As the leading business school in France in the field of law, EDHEC plans to step up its activity in the sector by creating the EDHEC Augmented Law Institute. The aim is to become the world’s go-to business school for augmented law, both in terms of training offers and research programmes. The Institute will analyse the impact of new technologies (AI, machine learning, deep learning) on law and legal practices. It will also be tasked with training augmented lawyers and building models from a hybridisation standpoint, so as give all future managers, business leaders and entrepreneurs the keys to understanding regulatory and legal issues. Lastly, the Institute will offer the legal and legal professions market the first legal talent management platform.

TECH, AI & HUMANITIES: A NEW KNOWLEDGE-TRANSMISSION MODEL

Although technological proficiency is now a pre-requisite, EDHEC also wants to encourage its students to make managed and well-considered use of technology and data science. The School therefore plans to equip them with a solid technological and digital culture, by creating a Data and AI for Future Generations centre that familiarises them with the issues raised by technological transformation and promotes appropriate and positive use of technology.

EDHEC has also designated several priority projects with a view to accelerating its tech strategy and deploying a student experience geared to excellence on its different campuses:
Augmented learning: capitalising on the experience gained through the EDHEC Online platform, the School intends to develop digital content both from a blended learning and fully online approach.

A data plan based on learning analytics will be set up to offer students a flexible and personalised way of organising their studies.

AN INTERNATIONAL STRATEGY BASED ON HIGH-LEVEL PARTNERSHIPS

EDHEC’s international strategy sets great store on giving students real exposure to “difference”, whether on our campuses or on exchanges or double degrees: the added value of an immersive academic exchange in a foreign university will always be higher than an exchange undertaken at a satellite French campus abroad. Having already signed many agreements with world-renowned academic institutions (UC Berkeley, UCLA, Saint Gallen University, Tsinghua University, Imperial College, SKK in South Korea, etc.), EDHEC intends to continue policy in this area by aiming for 100% of accredited partners on the Master by 2025. The School also plans to strengthen its presence in London and Singapore, in line with the development of its “Scientifics” strategy, as well as set up an academic hub devoted to innovation in California.

A STUDENT EXPERIENCE FOR EXCELLENCE

EDHEC will deploy an experience of excellence on its various campuses, redesigned as places of inclusion and exchange, in order to promote new forms of digital and collaborative teaching. As of now, EDHEC is working on complete carbon neutrality for the institution by 2030, with a transverse task-force that associates all stakeholders such as student associations.
Moreover, in order to significantly contribute to the access diversification to higher education and in coordination with the Foundation, EDHEC is strengthening its “EDHEC For All” programme which will be endowed with € 13 million per year up to 2025. The objective is to allow 40% of EDHEC students to benefit from a scholarship.

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