MBS, one of the major Business Schools in France with over 125 years of history, is embarking on a new era of development. This expansion includes the opening of a new eco-campus in Montpellier scheduled for 2026, the inauguration of a site in Paris in September 2024 and the exploration of international expansion. The aim is to keep MBS among the leading grandes écoles, both nationally and internationally, by drawing on academic excellence, professional expertise and a multi-site presence.

A gradual opening in Paris

From the start of the 2024 academic year, MBS will open its Paris campus in the heart of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, the historic student quarter of Paris.

There are several reasons for this opening. The school wants to offer students in the Ile-de-France region high-quality training and privileged access to unlimited work-study programmes, but also to reduce the number of work-study students travelling between Montpellier and the Ile-de-France region. This Paris campus will enable MBS to strengthen its national and international appeal for post-baccalaureate and international students.

As soon as it opens, students will be able to follow the MSc Global Business Management programme, a specialisation 100% in English that provides training in international business and the challenges of globalisation, and the Executive Master (DMOS), a degree course for future executives in strategic and operational management.

From 2025, MBS will be offering a ‘Bachelor Start’ programme for baccalaureate holders wishing to re-orientate themselves. This first year of a Bachelor’s degree on the Paris campus will be a real springboard towards MBS’s internationally recognised  Bachelor’s degree.

At the start of the 2026 academic year, MBS will open its Bachelor’s programme, as well as the Grande Ecole programme (Master in Management), on a sandwich course basis and with no limit on places.

The school plans to welcome around 50 students to its Paris campus for the first time, and to increase this number tenfold by 2030.

Anima: an ambitious eco-responsible campus In Montpellier, Southern France

In Montpellier, the foundation stone for this future campus was laid on 29 March, marking the start of 30 months of construction work with a view to opening the campus at the start of the 2026 academic year.

The future Anima eco-campus is eco-designed and has been awarded silver-level “Bâtiment Durable Occitanie” certification. This standard includes more than 300 criteria divided into 7 themes: site, energy, water, comfort and health, materials, social and economic, and project management.

In this building, which will also house the Purple Campus and the Occitanie Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCI), MBS will have 20,000m2 spread over 6 floors. The school will be able to accommodate up to 6,000 students in a modular space dedicated to active teaching methods and student life. Students will be able to take advantage of two lecture theatres, a start-up incubator, premises for associations, a rooftop cafeteria and a ‘smart building’ comprising connected, modular classrooms and a digital learning centre for practising new technologies and artificial intelligence.

Ideally located, the campus is just 300m from the TGV station, very close to the airport and 10 minutes by tram from Montpellier city centre. Students will benefit from a unique environment, immersed in the French Tech ecosystem and the Innovation Hall, and in daily contact with the CCI’s partner companies.

Opposite the campus, the Halle Nova will offer a diverse range of catering services and a sports hall, providing an enriching living and studying environment. On the other side, a 30-hectare green space invites students and visitors to relax and enjoy themselves.

More than 800 student accommodation units will also be built close to the campus.

New academic partnerships

MBS keeps developing new national and international partnerships with leading institutions. From the start of the 2024 academic year, students will be able to take advantage of new double degrees with EPF engineering school in Montpellier, but also with Queensland University of Technology (Australia), Manchester Metropolitan University (United Kingdom), Kozminski University (Poland), University Utara Malaysia (Malaysia) and Pontificia Universidad Javeriana Cali (Colombia).

Professor Mariola Ciszewska-Mlinarič, Dean of the College of Management at Kozminski University, highlights the significance of international cooperation, emphasizing the valuable opportunity for students to earn dual diplomas from renowned institutions worldwide. In the master’s studies in management, this partnership offers students the chance to experience France and Poland through a study trip.

Xavier Rajot, Director of International Academic Partnerships, expressed great enthusiasm for this milestone in this growing academic partnership. This double master’s degree marks a significant achievement, building upon the success of the bachelor’s level collaboration, with more to come in the future.

On Wednesday 14 February, Le Point revealed the 2024 ranking of Grande Ecole programmes, comparing the 37 state-approved Master’s degrees awarded by business schools. MBS maintains its 13th place ranking (12th place among post-prepa programmes), with an 8th place ranking for Research, which feeds directly into the teaching content of the programmes.

New this year: Le Point is adding a special top 10 to its traditional list, dedicated to the schools most committed to the ecological transition.

Ecological transition at the core of MBS’s programmes and strategic plan

In this new Top 10 of schools most committed to the ecological transition, MBS is ranked 2nd, directly in line with its mission: “to train the forerunners of responsible economic transition”.

The ranking takes into consideration MBS’s ambition to become a mission-driven company, the fact that it has been awarded the DD&RS label in 2022, the inclusion of the Climate Fresque in the curriculum and the amount of published research articles devoted to the ecological transition.

More concretely, the Sustainability Lab and the five MBS Chairs enable us to enrich the content of our courses by integrating CSR expertise throughout the curriculum. In a few weeks’ time, students will be taking part in the Hackathon – ODD Challenge, during which more than 600 students from the Grande Ecole and Bachelor programmes will be working together over three intensive days on projects and solutions to meet the 17 Sustainable Development Goals set by the United Nations. To relive last year’s event, which included the award of the Social Business Prize to the “Alentours” organic shop, click here.

To go further, outside the curriculum, the MBS MIND Chair offers students the opportunity to join an Excellence pathway dedicated to transition: Act for Change.
A few months ago, the second intake of students on the course discovered this new form of personalised support, unheard of in the world of business schools, during an induction seminar held in the heart of an eco-environment.

Finally, MBS will be laying the foundation stone for its future eco-responsible campus at Cambacérès on 29 March. As part of this innovative and sustainable project, the materials used will be mainly bio-sourced, with low-carbon concrete, solar orientation of openings, sustainable cooling solutions, and energy optimisation thanks to SERM énergie’s virtuous heating network. Thanks to this commitment, the campus has been awarded the “Bâtiment Durable Occitanie niveau Argent” label, recognising its commitment to eco-responsibility.

To find out more, click here.

This week marked the 3rd edition of the International Entrepreneurship Seminar, with MBS Major Partner Decathlon France as guest of honour. Led and supervised by Dr Jan Weiss, Dr Annabelle Jaouen and the coaches from the MBS Entrepreneurship Center, this educational challenge gave students the opportunity to dive into the world of entrepreneurship by imagining a start-up with a sustainable business model that moves away from the traditional marketing approach and focuses on meaning and reducing environmental impact.

One of three key Business Games for second-year students on the Grande Ecole Programme

Each year, students take part in a flagship project focusing on social and environmental transition: a challenge on the UN’s SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) in the pre-master’s year, an International Entrepreneurship seminar in the 2nd year and a Responsible Leadership seminar in the 3rd year.

During these four days, students work in teams, accompanied by coaches from the Entrepreneurship Center incubator.

Ecodesign, repairability, the circular economy and thinking about the end-of-life of products: yesterday the best teams had the opportunity to pitch their project in front of the brand’s professionals: Philippe Cassan, Aurelien Leturgie, Pierre Boudou, Béatrice Oyane-Bikom and Julie Delignon.

Dear members of our community,

It is with great sadness and a heavy heart that we pay tribute to Helen Etchanchu, an emblematic figure at our school and a pioneer in the field of sustainability. Helen, associate professor at Montpellier Business School, director of the IMPACTS (Inclusive Management, Prosperity And Collective Transformation for Sustainability) research centre, and co-holder of the chair in Communication and Organisation for Sustainable Transformation (COAST), tragically passed away on 14 February after a courageous battle with a long illness.

Helen devoted her career to researching how we can organise ourselves and make sense of the major challenges of our time, such as climate change, inequality and health, in order to achieve the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. She also co-founded OS4future, to encourage other academics to lead by example on the climate crisis and transform the way we behave and operate. Her profile was featured in the French newspaper La Croix on the first ever French national debates on the Sustainable Development Goals organised by Open Diplomacy in September 2020.

Her thesis on “The Roles of Speech, Legitimacy and Power in Activating and Impeding Institutional Change towards Sustainability” earned her the Innovation, Science, Technology and Society (IS²IT) scholarship, awarded to outstanding PhD candidates by the Paris Regional Government’s Institute for Research on Innovation and Society (IFRIS). She received the Founding Young Researcher Award from the Society for Business Ethics in 2015.

Helen received her PhD in Business Administration from ESSEC Business School, Cergy, France, after studying in Germany, Spain, the United States and Canada.

Prior to her academic career, she worked in media and advertising, strategic marketing, sustainable product innovation and consulting. These experiences fuel her research expertise in strategic communication and sustainability.

Our deepest condolences go out to her husband Julien, her two children, and to all those affected by this terrible loss. Our community shares your grief at this difficult time.

Helen, your legacy will live on through the projects you inspired and the people you impacted. You will remain forever in our hearts as a model of passion, determination and humanity.

With all our love and respect,

The Chair COAST team

Celebrating Excellence: we are thrilled to announce that the Head of the Department of Strategy & Entrepreneurship of the MBS Faculty, Dr. Jinia Mukerjee, has been awarded the prestigious Hind Rattan Award 2024.

The ceremony, held in New Delhi on the eve of India’s Republic Day, recognized Dr. Mukerjee for her “outstanding services, achievements, and contributions to society.” The Hind Rattan is among the highest Indian diasporic honors awarded to non-resident persons of Indian origin (NRIs) by the NRI Welfare Society of India.

In addition to this achievement, Dr. Mukerjee has been making significant contributions to the academic world. Last August, her collaborative study with Dr. Anca Metiu, titled “Play and psychological safety: An ethnography of innovative work,” earned the OMT Division’s Best International Paper Award from the Academy of Management. This work showcases the interplay between phases of professional commitment and playful exploration, culminating in a symbiotic relationship that fosters creativity.

This dual recognition reflects Dr. Jinia Mukerjee’s dedication to groundbreaking research and her significant impact on both academia and business community. Congratulations !

MBS, in partnership with the CCI Hérault and Purple Campus, has announced last October the signing of a property development contract with Eiffage for the construction of its brand new Cambacérès Campus, representing a major investment of €100 million.

“The ground-breaking ceremony is scheduled for the 29th March, with delivery of the three buildings scheduled for 27 months from today, so that 4000 students can be welcomed to the new campus at the start of the new academic year in September 2026,” explains André Deljarry, Chairman of MBS.

AN INNOVATIVE AND ENVIRONMENTALLY-FRIENDLY PLACE TO LIVE

The “new campus at Cambacérès” project is part of an approach based on innovation and sustainability. The materials used will be mainly bio-sourced, with low-carbon concrete, “solar” orientation of building openings, sustainable cooling solutions, and energy optimisation thanks to SERM Energie’s virtuous heating network.
The campus has been awarded the “Bâtiment Durable Occitanie niveau Argent” label, in recognition of its commitment to eco-responsibility, as Stéphanie Andrieu, 1st Vice-President of MBS, explained at the MBS back-to-school press conference.

At the same time, more than 830 new student accommodation units will be built close to this new hub of student life in Montpellier.

As the only French business school in the Shanghai ranking of the world’s best universities, MBS continues to impress with its progress in all four categories in which it appears in the academic subjets rankings.

This year, MBS moved up to 2nd place among the French Grandes Écoles in the Shanghai Academic subjects rankings for two research subjects: ‘Business Administration’ and ‘Finance’, ranking 41st and 51st ex-aequo respectively.

A PROGRESSION IN FOUR SPECIFIC RANKING CATEGORIES

The Shanghai Academic subjects rankings are well known for their rigorous evaluation of the research performance of higher education institutions around the world, providing a detailed view of academic specialities. This year, MBS performed brilliantly in 4 areas:

• Business Administration: 2nd French School (up 5 places) and 41st in the world
• Finance: 2nd French School (up one place), reaching 51st place ex-aequo worldwide.
• Management: 5th French School (up one place) and tied for 101st worldwide.
• Economics: A significant step forward, moving up 3 places to 5th place in France and tied for 151st place worldwide.

These consecutive successes in the thematic rankings underline MBS’s ongoing commitment to academic excellence and cutting-edge research. These rankings take into account a variety of criteria, such as the quality of the professors’ publications, the rankings of the scientific journals in which they are published, and the honours they have received for their research.

To read the rankings, click here.

A few months ago, MBS announced its participation in the Account4GreenEco project, co-funded by the European Union’s Erasmus+ programme. Five students had the opportunity to take part in the first stage of this project, which aims to create a platform for learning about environmental accounting in order to support the ecological transition of the European Union’s economy.

Jade Ligneres, Pauline Alleaume, Pinella Nehme, Sabah Znassi and Veselin Valkanov travelled to the Università di Trento (Italy) to join Dr Juliette Senn, the project leader at MBS, and 16 other students in the first workshops.

The trip was organised around two key moments. Firstly, the students were able to test the first of the three modules that will make up the platform in order to improve their knowledge in the area of sustainable development reporting. The group then took part in seminars led by world experts in sustainable development accounting and research, including Professor Lee Parker (University of Glasgow), Professor Stefan Schaltegger (Leuphana Universität Lüneburg) and Professor Carlos Larrinaga (Universidad de Burgos).

The next stage will take place at the beginning of the academic year 2024, at Leuphana Universität Lüneburg (Germany), where the next selected participants will test the second phase of the platform’s development.

Montpellier Business School (MBS) has announced a reform of its Master of Science (MSc) in Global Business to meet the needs of today’s recruiters, and is opening a new programme for the new academic year starting in September 2024: the MSc Complex Project Management, a new specialisation guaranteeing graduates excellent employment opportunities in France and abroad.

Meeting companies’ needs for agility with the MSc Complex Project Management

As a reminder, the MBS MSc programmes award Bac+5 diplomas, approved by the Ministry of Higher Education and Research, and RNCP certified. They are aimed at candidates with a degree equivalent to a 4 years degree (Bac+4) entering the programme in one year (1-year MSc), and candidates with a degree equivalent to a 3 years degree (Bac+3) entering the programme in two years (2-year MSc).

At the start of the 2024 academic year, students will have the opportunity to join the MSc Complex Project Management, directed by Dr. Alec Waterworth. ” Companies need to be agile and adopt a more cross-functional management approach to deal with the many crises they face, making project management one of the most in-demand skills for recruiters,” says Dr. Waterworth. Innovation management, leadership, change management: this programme aims to train leaders who know how to bring a team together and navigate complex projects effectively.

Another new feature: the MSc Global Finance is evolving and becoming the MSc Global Finance in a Sustainable World

At the start of the new academic year in September 2024, the MSc Global Finance will become the MSc Global Finance in a Sustainable World, reflecting MBS’s desire to strengthen the teaching modules relating to sustainable finance and corporate social responsibility in the financial sector.

“A few weeks ago, the school organised the International Conference on Finance, Banking and Accounting (ICFBA), which brought together 164 researchers from all over the world to discuss in detail all the contemporary issues in the financial world (market regulations, ESG criteria, financial risks, etc.) and demonstrated the relevance of MBS’s research and Chairs in these areas. The reform of the MSc Global Finance in a Sustainable World programme echoes this expertise and is therefore in line with our commitment to train the leaders of the transition,” concludes Bruno Ducasse, Managing Director of MBS.