17/12/2008 | France, Management

Top-ranking French business schools

By: Ann Graham

Results from the 2008 Financial Times rankings show that of the most recent graduating class, 98% of students were in employment three months after graduation.

EM LYON
This prestigious French business school is ranked number seven by the Financial Times for its Masters in Management programs. Another triple crown accredited French business school (AMBA, EQUIS, AACSB) EM LYON is also ranked highly throughout Europe for its executive education and MBA programs. EM LYON’s main campus is just ten minutes from the centre of Lyon in France and the school also has a campus in Shanghai. Results from the 2008 Financial Times rankings show that of the most recent graduating class, 98% of students were in employment three months after graduation. Three years after graduation, alumni are earning over US$53,000.

Taught in either English or French, the Masters in Management (Grande École) program is a flexible two-year degree offering students either an internship or academic exchange.

EDHEC Business School
EDHEC Business School is back in the top ten of the 2008 Financial Times ranking of Masters in Management programs in ninth place. With three campuses in Paris, Lille and Nice, EDHEC caters for 5,000 students across 10 international programs and has triple crown accreditation from AACSB, Equis and AMBA. Taught in either English or French, the Masters in Management (Grande École) program is a flexible two-year degree offering students either an internship or academic exchange. The innovative Financial Economics Track offers two years of specialisation in Finance while the unique TI&CD (Talent Identification and Careers Development) program provides personalised coaching and workshops to focus on competency development. Three years after graduation, alumni are earning over US$54,000.

Sebastien Vivier-Lirimont, Associate Dean of EDHEC MSc says the FT ranking of EDHEC’s Master in Management program confirms the relevance of its strategic positioning ‘EDHEC for business’, which is the guiding principle in its masters programs. “Firms require evolving talents capable of managing both projects and teams, and bringing expertise to specialised issues. The FT ranking reinforces our will to be the European school with the greatest corporate impact which leads us to underpin the curriculum by our research programs to grant our students with the high degree of expertise they need in their professional life.”

Gordon Shenton, emeritus professor at EM LYON Business School and associate director of accreditation body EFMD’s Quality Services Department, says many European business schools are in a much better position to compete in world education markets than was the case ten years ago.

In an article published in Global Focus, EFMD’s business magazine, entitled ‘The Bologna effect: the emerging European masters market’, (co-authored with Patrice Houdayer, dean of academic programs at EM-LYON Business School), both Shenton and Houdayer highlight the gradual emergence of a European market for management education that has impelled schools and universities to internationalize their activities beyond the border of their home countries. “Being in the top 10 (or 15 or 25) in Europe has become a popular strategic objective among business school deans as a first step towards establishing an international brand,” writes Shenton and Houdayer.

The two authors also put the emergence of these top ranked masters programs down to rankings such as those by the Financial Times, raising schools’ awareness of their externally perceived positioning within international markets; the arrival of accreditation ten years ago which has transformed the competitive environment in Europe; and the impact of the Bologna reforms in higher education where 45 European countries have committed themselves to creating a more coherent European Higher Education Area by 2010.