EFMD Awards EQUIS Accreditation to the Australian School of Business, Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore and Nottingham University Business School

BRUSSELS, June 21 /PRNewswire/ -- EFMD would like to warmly congratulate the:

• Australian School of Business, University of New South Wales, Australia
• Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore (IIMB), India
• Nottingham University Business School, University of Nottingham, UK

who have just been awarded EQUIS accreditation. This takes the number of accredited schools to 128 across 35 countries.

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.

EQUIS is not primarily focused on the MBA or any other specific programme. Its scope covers all programmes offered by an institution from the first degree up to the Ph.D. Institutions that are accredited by EQUIS must demonstrate not only high general quality in all dimensions of their activities, but also a high degree of internationalisation. With companies recruiting worldwide, with students choosing to get their education outside their home countries, and with schools building alliances across borders and continents, there is a rapidly growing need for them to be able to identify those institutions in other countries that deliver high-quality education in international management.

Commenting on the accreditation Prof. Leigh Drake, Director, Nottingham University Business School, said, "Nottingham University Business School is delighted to join a select international group of the world's top business schools. To be awarded EQUIS accreditation for Nottingham University Business School in the UK, China, and Malaysia endorses and enhances our ambitious, multi-campus strategy and confirms the quality of our staff, students, programmes and facilities. EQUIS sets very high standards and we are extremely proud to join this elite group as a truly international business school."

"We are delighted at IIMB to have received the EQUIS accreditation. It is indeed an honour to join a select group of schools globally. It has allowed us to review our processes in depth and will help us draw global attention to our programmes and achievements of our faculty," added Prof. Pankaj Chandra, Director, Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore.

Professor Alec Cameron, Dean of the Australian School of Business, said that gaining EQUIS accreditation placed the school in an exclusive group of the world's leading business schools. "The international peer review process for gaining EQUIS accreditation is rigorous, and has involved two and a half years of benchmarking the school against international best practice in terms of teaching programs, students, intellectual output, corporate engagement, internationalisation and executive education. EQUIS will help us to build stronger research linkages with other EQUIS accredited schools and it will also enhance our brand in international markets, particularly in Europe and Asia."

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. EQUIS attaches particular importance to the development of managerial and entrepreneurial skills and fosters a students sense of global responsibility.

Prof. Julio Urgel, the EFMD Director of Quality Service, said, "Graduates who choose to study at an EQUIS-accredited school can be assured that they will receive international recognition for their qualification, which is extremely important in today's global environment."

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 750 member organizations from academia, business, public service and consultancy in 82 countries, EFMD provides a unique forum for information, research, networking and debate on innovation and best practice in management development. Website: http://www.efmd.org

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SOURCE EFMD