EADA is continuing to turn towards the Asian market in search of strategic partners for a win-win relationship to jointly head towards excellence in education. The recent agreement signed with the prestigious Shanghai International Studies University (SISU) of Shanghai (China), one of the country’s 100 most important universities, falls within this framework. The challenges are to train future executives with an entrepreneuring and innovative spirit, critical capacity and a global Outlook.
Professor and student exchanges
The agreement involves various lines of collaboration. One of the main ones is student exchanges between the two universities. More specifically, participants who are taking a master or an MBA in SISU will have the chance to study a semester or up to a whole academic year in EADA on the following programmes: International Master in Finance, International Master in Management, International Master in Marketing, International Master in Tourism & Hospitality Management and International MBA.
SISU will be responsible for selecting the students although all of them will have to pass the EADA admission process requirements. In addition to this, the candidates who are taking an International MBA at SISU will be required to show at least three years of professional experience. Similarly, EADA participants on the same programmes will be able to continue their training in SISU under the same conditions.
Another line of collaboration entails cooperation and contact between EADA and SISU faculty members. Both parties regard this interaction as fundamental for the development and preparation of joint programmes as well as for working on various programmes as well as for working on various research projects and exchanging materials and learning methods for the classes. Hence, the agreement with SISU includes a professor exchange in order to improve the training experience and create synergies in the research field.
From left to right, Jordi Díaz, EADA's Associate Dean International Relations, Cao Deming, president of SISU, and Margaret Chen, EADA's International Advisory Board member and president of China Club.
Bridges with China
For Jordi Díaz, EADA Director of Studies and International Relations, “this new strategic agreement is very important because SISU is a flagship among Chinese universities, which is in keeping with our objective to forge agreements with partners who contribute value, and also because it is a way of building bridges with a country that is soon to become the world’s leading economic power and which is increasingly demanding more and more quality for its managers”.
Furthermore, Mr Díaz goes on to add that “this collaboration addresses EADA’s intention to help other universities to obtain the main international accreditations, which is essential in order to accomplish excellence in their programmes”. In fact, he points out that “EADA’s accreditations –such as EQUIS and AMBA– as well as its ranking among the Top 25 best business schools in Europe according to the Financial Times Ranking, were determining factors for SISU when it came to choosing EADA as a strategic partner”.
Good impressions
During his visit to the Chinese university accompanied by Margaret Chen, member of the International Advisory Board of EADA, Jordi Díaz gave a conference on high managerial performance to participants on the final year of the master. He explained that “I was able to see for myself that the students had a high level of training, a sense of effort and continuous improvement as well as an international vocation, aspects which all coincide with the profile of EADA students”.
Both Jordi Díaz and Margaret Chen had the chance to meet with Cao Deming, the president of SISU, who in addition to explaining to them the efforts the school was making to improve the quality of its programmes and its focus towards the new challenges brought on by globalisation, insisted on continuing cooperation with EADA in order to continue to be a flagship school in China.
