SGH Warsaw School of Economics has earned the prestigious EQUIS (European Quality Improvement System) institutional accreditation. It is the leading international system for the assessment of teaching quality and study conditions at business schools. It is awarded to the best business schools by the European Foundation for Management Development (EFMD).
– The EQUIS accreditation is a great honour for us, as it is one of the two most prestigious accreditations in the world awarded to business schools. Five schools have earned it in Central and Eastern Europe, including two in Poland. We are very happy that after years of exhaustive analyses, on the part of both EFMD and SGH, we are now able to count ourselves in such respectable company,” says Rector of SGH, Professor Piotr Wachowiak.
Around 200 business schools across the world, including 105 in Europe, have earned the prestigious accreditation, such as the London Business School, INSEAD in France, or the Frankfurt School of Finance and Management. In Poland, The Faculty of Management at the University of Warsaw and the Kozminski University have previously been awarded this distinction.
– Our preparations to become EQUIS accredited has lasted for a few years and required intensive work, analyses, and consultations, as a result of which we drafted a comprehensive Self-Assessment Report and delivered it to EFMD. The last stage was a virtual visit to our School paid by a four-person EFMD committee between 8 and 11 June this year. Close to 100 people affiliated with SGH took part in meetings with the visitors: members of the authorities, representatives of scholars and administrative staff, students, graduates, and business partners. The EQUIS accreditation process contributed to mobilising our academic community. However, it is worth remembering that the accreditation is both an immense honour and, at the same time, a commitment to the further improvement of our teaching quality, research, and school management,” says Vice-Rector of SGH for International Relations, Professor Jacek Prokop.
As we can read on EFMD Global’s website, EQUIS is the most comprehensive institutional accreditation system for business and management schools. It is acknowledged worldwide by students, faculty, employers, corporate clients and the media, often being a pre-requisite for entry to rankings. Quality benchmark in ten areas, EQUIS accreditation ensures a rigorous quality control, benchmarking a school against international standards in terms of governance, programmes, students, faculty, research, internationalisation, ethics, responsibility and sustainability, as well as engagement with the world of practice.
With its broad assessment scope, EQUIS covers all the activities of a school, including degree and non-degree programmes, as well as doctoral teaching programmes, knowledge generation and contribution to the community. EQUIS helps strive for excellence in an on-going improvement process following each accreditation or re-accreditation visit. EQUIS considers the great diversity of national cultures and educational systems around the world. It recognises that it is essential to understand the particularities of the local context in every assessment process.
SGH Warsaw School of Economics is a wonderful school, which we create and perfect together. I am proud that by heading the EQUIS (European Quality Improvement System) accreditation project I was able to contribute to earning this very important and prestigious accreditation,” says Professor Marcin Wojtysiak-Kotlarski. „I believe that, out of all the projects I had the chance to head in my professional career, this has been my greatest responsibility. This is a tremendous success for our entire school, a confirmation that SGH belongs among the top business schools in the world. This success would not be possible without the involvement of many people participating in the preparation of documents for the respective stages of the accreditation process, as well as representing SGH in the meetings during the four-day visit of the accreditation committee in June this year. The testament to the scale of our efforts is the sole fact that around 150 people were directly involved,” he highlights.
„I would like to kindly thank the representatives of students and PhD students, scholars, administrative staff, graduates, businesses from SGH Corporate Partner Club and the School Board, for their brilliant participation in the EQUIS accreditation process. We also address our thanks to the Ministry of Education and Science for support in the implementation of this project. Naturally, none of this would be possible, were it not for the determination and support of the school's authorities. I always felt the great trust that my superiors and closest project co-workers had in me – the Rector of SGH, prof. Marek Rocki; Rector of SGH, Professor Piotr Wachowiak; and the Vice-Rector of SGH for International Relations, Professor Jacek Prokop. This trust, placed in me by the academic community of SGH, I could not betray”.
