But this challenge they address in dispersed order

It is a major site for large schools of management and engineers. One of the most important, perhaps also the most complex. With the globalization of the economy and, now, higher education, international became for them a requirement. Unable to escape. But this challenge, they address in dispersed order. Each in its own way. Question of ambitions and financial means, but opportunities... or audacity.

"The challenge for us, is to be a European player of world stature," says thus Pierre Tapie, Director General of Essec. Companies must have the certainty to recruit home profiles really international, able for example to develop subsidiaries in China, the Brazil or anywhere in the world. "Such a strategy requires to attract students and faculty from around the world, to be featured prominently in the international rankings, to communicate to the world... And for this to have important means. In reality, only a small handful of schools in the hexagon can claim is also ambitious targets.

Most prefer to place the bar less top. "We must not lose sight that our legitimacy is primarily local, explains François Duvergé, former Director General of the Escem (Tours and Poitiers)." We do not have vocation to train students around the world. Our school is perceived primarily as a resource centre by the companies in our environment. But this does not prevent us internationalize our curriculum. "All the Escem students so perform a stay of at least one semester in a foreign University.

In addition, as noted by Jean-François Fiorina, Director of the ESC of Grenoble, there are multiple ways to be active at the international school ". These different methods overlap or complement each other. Thus, some few institutions chose to open their own campuses abroad, and attract students in significant numbers on the model of Insead in Singapore (read below).

Mutual recognition

But most prefer to opt for a less radical approach, and collaborate with foreign partners as solid and deemed as possible. In the menu, exchanges of students and teachers, or even degrees joint or double degrees. Essec has signed eight agreements of double degrees with renowned institutions, after years of collaboration. The last was concluded with the University of Keio, at the Japan. These agreements also allow each partner to "endorse", somehow: the quality of the other. It is, in a way, the strategy of the CEMS (), a network of 17 European institutions, including part CET. Which is also associated with the London School of Economics and New York University for his "Executive MBA" Trium, a roaming programme confirmed frames.

Others relocate some of their formations: Grenoble EM offers his MBA in half a dozen countries (Moldova, Russia, Malta, England...), and provides some of its programs for executives in Casablanca, in the Morocco. Similarly, Ecole des mines of Paris, in collaboration with the Insa de Lyon, proposes to Beijing two specialized masters dedicated to energy and the environment. Another form, that of the ParisTech consortium, which comprises nine schools of engineers (and, recently, HEC) and them is a common international showcase.

Remains that multiple parameters can affect the choice of actors. They relate in particular to the identity of each school, to its culture, its history. Euromed, for example, target priority countries of the Mediterranean basin, including its "(Mediterranean MBA)." ESCP-EAP, with its five campuses (in Paris, Berlin, London, Madrid and Turin) and its program "integrated", with three years in three countries, intends to position itself as "the school of Europe", according to Pascal Morand, its Director General. The Ceram builds on its poles of expertise (entrepreneurship, including), and its geographical situation privileged to attract foreign students, and also to take foot in China. Edhec, just to build a campus in London, capitalizes on the radiation in the City of its centre for research in finance.

Not to mention that various opportunities can be present. They are sometimes the result of contacts and personal affinities between patterns of institutions or teachers. Ecole des mines de Saint-Etienne thus benefited from the support of the State of Santa Catarina, to the Brazil, to establish its Institute Heliopolis. Similar reasons led the Essca to take foot in Hungary or the Eigsi of La Rochelle to Casablanca. He arrived that students are at the origin of cooperation between institutions...