EFMD Successfully Concludes the EPAS Scale-Up Initiative

    BRUSSELS, BELGIUM, October 02, 2008 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Following two pilot phases in 2005 and 2006, Scale-Up aimed at building up a European-wide presence for EPAS. According to Eric Cornuel, Director General of EFMD, Scale-Up has turned out to be a great success and has exceeded EFMD's expectations by a far margin: "The growing demand for EPAS accreditation clearly reflects the widespread need of business schools to assess the academic rigor and the professional effectiveness of their programs, often newly designed for Bologna fitness, while simultaneously receiving public recognition for successful internationalization."

EPAS complements the already well-established EQUIS system, EFMD's institutional accreditation service and was developed by EFMD in response to the many requests of its members to offer program-level accreditations too. The feedback from the market has been tremendously positive, which is clearly reflected by the EPAS numbers after only 21 months of regular operation: Considering all EPAS accredited and EPAS eligible programs, the market coverage for EPAS currently extends to 68 programs from 50 institutions based in 26 countries covering all 5 continents. 34% of the total are (E)MBAs, 29% are Masters, 25% are Bachelors, and 12% are non-Bologna country-specific programs. The EFMD Quality Services Department anticipates that most eligible programs will go through the remainder of the accreditation process within the next 16 months. It is also expected that EPAS will generate some 30 new applications during 2009.

These figures emphasize the market acceptance of EPAS. Eric Cornuel however emphasizes that EPAS is not about numbers. EFMD has initiated the EPAS project in 2005 to establish a clearly demanding program accreditation system with a truly international scope. "EPAS is based on the same principles as EQUIS. We recognize programs for successful internationalization and are most demanding with our standards in the areas of academic rigor, corporate relevance and quality assurance. We want to attract the premium segment of international academic management programs worldwide. As with EQUIS, our EPAS accreditation standards will become gradually more demanding as the quality of the best programs naturally evolves. This will present challenging development targets for EPAS applicants and will actively support the continuous quality improvement efforts of institutions already with EPAS accreditation."

EFMD is recognized globally as an accreditation body of quality in management education and has established accreditation services for business schools and business school programs, corporate universities and technology-enhanced learning programs. With more than 700 member organizations from academia, business, public service and consultancy in 80 countries, EFMD provides a unique forum for information, research, networking and debate on innovation and best practice in management development. EFMD website - www.efmd.org

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