KU Leuven’s business faculty earns highest Equis accreditation

The prestigious Equis accreditation is awarded by the European Foundation for Management Development (EFMD) to business departments or business schools as a sign of excellence. In Belgium, only Leuven’s department and Vlerick Business School have received Equis’s five-year accreditation.

EFMD is a non-profit organisation made up of schools and companies that work to internationalise and raise standards of business education. The accreditation is awarded after a long process of assessment of every aspect of a business department or school, including the quality of the programmes, relevance of research, degree of internationalisation and the relationship with the corporate world.

KU Leuven’s economics and business faculty, with campuses in Leuven (pictured), Antwerp, Brussels and Kortrijk, is home to more than 8,700 students, of which some 1,400 are international students. All campuses are part of the same department and, hence, carry the accreditation.

“We’re extremely proud, because we’ve now obtained the highest possible Equis accreditation,” said professor Wilfried Lemahieu, dean of the department. “The review panel clearly understood what our faculty is all about: the exceptionally strong interaction between high-quality research and education, the collegiate manner of collaboration and decision-making, and the way we involve students, alumni and corporate partners in these processes.”

Photo: Rob Stevens/KU Leuven