ESCP Enterprise Faculty, the world’s oldest enterprise college, based in Paris in 1819, is about to signal MOUs with main technical institutes from the IIT community in India.
“We’re now transferring to collaborate with IITs and have already initiated discussions, and are working towards a proper MOU,” Leon Laulusa, government president and dean at ESCP Enterprise Faculty, instructed The PIE Information.
“The collaboration will embody scholar change, joint analysis, and college mobility. The main focus is on bridging enterprise training with broader tech wants.”
Famend for its excessive standings in international training rankings just like the Monetary Instances and QS, ESCP goals to collaborate with IITs on joint analysis, and scholar and college exchanges in areas equivalent to rising applied sciences, sustainability, synthetic intelligence, and entrepreneurship.
“We aren’t a standard engineering college, however we convey the go-to-market data to glorious merchandise coming from utilized sciences. That’s the place we (IITs and ESCP) complement one another,” acknowledged Laulusa.
Outdoors of France, we’ve already constructed fashions like our partnership with Columbia Faculty of Engineering
Leon Laulusa, ESCP Enterprise Faculty
Constructing on its dual-degree partnership with Columbia College’s Fu Basis Faculty of Engineering and Utilized Science, which merges engineering and administration training, ESCP is anticipated to launch comparable collaborations with institutes like IIT Bombay.
“Outdoors of France, we’ve already constructed fashions like our partnership with Columbia Faculty of Engineering. This yr there being 10 of them, our college students spend one yr at ESCP and the following at Columbia. We goal to duplicate this with IITs,” added Laulusa.
Previous to IITs, ESCP has had long-standing partnerships with India’s premier administration institutes, beginning in 1985 with IIM Ahmedabad.
The collaboration, which began with a semester-long scholar change, has now blossomed into twin diploma choices between ESCP and prime IIMs, in addition to different Indian enterprise colleges.
“In the present day, we work carefully with IIM Bangalore, Calcutta, Lucknow, Kozhikode, and SP Jain – the collaboration is great,” Laulusa instructed The PIE.
“The worth we provide is exclusive as college students can expertise a number of cities. For instance, they may spend two days in Paris and three in London throughout one program week.”
Whereas hundreds of Indian college students head to France for change packages, the stream doesn’t fairly go each methods.
French college students have been slower to discover alternatives in India, typically as a consequence of considerations round cultural variations, security, or simply not figuring out sufficient concerning the nation, as beforehand reported by The PIE.
However colleges like ESCP are hoping to alter that narrative.
“Annually, about 12 to fifteen ESCP scholar delegates go to IIM Ahmedabad however we do obtain extra Indian college students in return,” mentioned Laulusa.
“India is an extremely essential market – not simply in training however in what we are able to study from it.”
As a way to prioritise India as an change vacation spot, Laulusa believes it’s essential to focus on the alternatives for trade publicity within the nation.
“We wish to promote India not simply academically but in addition with company connections,” he added.
“The concept is, after learning in India, our college students ought to have the ability to intern there, both with Indian nationals or giant Indian firms.”
Whereas there are at present no plans to construct a campus or a analysis institution or centre in India, ESCP sees its Dubai campus, a part of the Dubai Worldwide Finance Centre, as a serious draw for Indian and South Asian college students.
“We’re a novel pan-European college. We’ve six campuses in Europe: Paris; London; Madrid; Turin; Berlin; and Warsaw. And now the seventh – exterior Europe – is in Dubai,” shared Laulusa.
“It was set in 2022 for government training. And simply final December, it obtained full accreditation as an establishment. Now we are able to grant Emirati levels. So this can be a good alternative for Indian college students to combine.”
The Dubai campus may assist maintain the expansion of Indian scholar enrolment at ESCP, which has been steadily rising.
For the 2024/25 educational yr, there are 608 Indian college students, reflecting a 16% enhance over the previous three years. India is now the third largest nation of origin for college kids on the establishment, following France and Italy.
The rise in scholar numbers bodes effectively with French President Emmanuel Macron’s purpose of welcoming 30,000 Indian college students to France by 2030, for which the French authorities has eased visa insurance policies for Indian college students.
The strengthening of instructional ties between the 2 international locations additionally presents ESCP with a possibility to collaborate on AI initiatives with Indian universities, in keeping with the latest AI Motion Summit in Paris, co-chaired by President Macron and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“The shared deal with AI with India and France additionally presents a novel alternative to leverage superior applied sciences for mutual profit and international impression,” mentioned Laulusa.
“By 2028 or 2030, if prime expertise from IITs and past say, ‘ESCP is the place to be, to study, and to grow to be an alum,’ then now we have actually succeeded.”
