International business school HEC Paris on Wednesday (March 22) inked a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Ashoka University in the presence of Alexandre Ziegler, Ambassador of France to India.
"We are excited to collaborate with HEC Paris, which has advanced the frontiers of management education and research across the globe. We are looking forward to working together with them to create high-quality research and education opportunities for students and faculty. This partnership also offers a great opportunity for us to expand the possibilities of our academic excellence and research globally," said Vineet Gupta, Founder and Pro-Vice Chancellor Ashoka University.
The collaboration brings together one of the world's leading European Business Institutes and India's pioneering Liberal Arts university to promote cooperation on academic and research development between the two.
"We wish to do joint research, joint course development and joint faculty projects together. We aim to partner with Ashoka's centres for entrepreneurship, philanthropy and social innovation, social change and connect faculties to work together. Ashoka is keen to learn from our ten years' experiences of developing a chair on social business and social entrepreneurship. We plan to get students work together on joint projects for a longer time where HEC students can come to India and work on social entrepreneurship projects for social change," said Peter Todd, Dean, HEC Paris explaining the MoU.
Asked about HEC's partnerships with other Indian institutes, he added, "We have double degree with IIM Ahmedabad, strong relationship with IIM Bangalore, IIM Calcutta and ISB Hyderabad. Since Ashoka University is one of its kind, it opens doors for different kinds of partnerships."
On Indo-French partnerships, Ziegler said: "We've been partners for several years mostly on science and education. Although the focus was and always be on doctorates and post-doctorates, we aim to increase our focus on graduate and post-graduate programs too. Graduate students who selected universities in USA, UK, Australia, Canada are now looking for alternate destinations. France can be a great destination for students because of the high-quality courses at a very competitive price. Strategic partnerships that entail people to people exchange, investing in the youth who will become next generation executive either is business or administration, is highly important at this time. We plan to do more of it."
"We are working on a MoU with the Government of India. The MoU aims at automatic recognition of degrees from each country. This agreement will make lives of our higher education institutions as well as students much easier. Draft of this negotiation is under legal review at present and is likely to be signed in a couple of months," Ziegler added.
HEC Paris is the second top business school according to the European Business School Ranking 2016 and Ashoka University is India's pioneering liberal arts university.
