SGH: CEMS School of the Year 2022/2023

“This is a big distinction for us. It proves that our teaching programme offered as part of the CEMS network is very good and, most of all, well perceived by the students. It is not only about provided knowledge, but also about the organisational dimension,” says Vice Rector for Foreign Cooperation, SGH professor, dr hab. Jacek Prokop.

In 2017 SGH Warsaw School of Economics was granted an award and the title of CEMS School of the Year 2016/2017. Representatives of our school received the award in Sydney (Australia). And now we did it for the second time. On this most important CEMS event our university was represented by the Rector of SGH, SGH professor dr hab. Piotr Wachowiak; Vice Rector for Foreign Cooperation, SGH professor dr hab. Jacek Prokop; and the management team: CEMS academic director, SGH professor, dr hab. Mirosław Jarosiński; CEMS programme manager at SGH Grzegorz Augustyniak, and CEMS corporate relations manager at SGH, Aneta Szydłowska.

What were the most important criteria considered for CEMS assessment?
“Most of all the assessment took into account student opinions about lectures and classes held at our university. Another vital criterion refers to matters related to the teaching process as a whole, such as meetings, student events that integrate the participants of the CEMS programme” says Vice Rector Prokop. “SGH is attended by students who come from other partner universities as part of one-year CEMS programme. They spend one semester at their university and the second one at one of the partner universities. We are assessed not only by our students; the assessments of students coming from other universities are very significant. Evidently, we are also well perceived by them. We can therefore assume that their opinions are fairly objective – at the end of the day, it is the students who grant the award!” 

The title of CEMS School of the Year is awarded to the best school among top three schools of the alliance, distinguished by the vote of CEMS Academic Committee, based on the students’ assessment of all the CEMS MIM elements (classes, workshops, business project, block seminar Global Citizenship Seminar or International Internship), student service, involvement of corporate partners and alumni, as well as activities of CEMS club. 

“The success of SGH was mostly the result of work of people involved in the programme, subjects offered by the school, cooperation with corporate partners, and curriculum quality and CEMS spirit,” says Aneta Szydłowska.
During the CEMS graduation in London, 868 of 1265 this year’s programme graduates received their diplomas. This group included 40 people from SGH Warsaw School of Economics.

CEMS is a global alliance of 33 best business schools, over 70 corporate partners and eight social partners. Universities and companies together provide CEMS Master’s in International Management programme. The aim of the alliance is to educate future leaders of international, multilingual, and multicultural world of business. SGH as the only university in Poland belongs to the global CEMS alliance. In Poland, the programme is open only for SGH students.

It allows students to earn CEMS diploma simultaneously with SGH diploma. Each year about 40 students are enrolled at SGH. Around 1200 people at 33 universities take the CEMS MIM programme annually. Up to 2023 it has been completed by 19 500 alumni. In 2023 six schools from the CEMS alliance were among the TOP10 in the Global Masters in Management Financial Times ranking (due to character of the ranking the CEMS MIM programme itself cannot be taken into account). The programme took 11th position in the ranking QS 2024 Masters In Management. 

More about the CEMS programme at SGH can be found on the website WWW.SGH.WAW.PL/CEMS, and on the CEMS website WWW.CEMS.ORG.  

ANETA SZYDŁOWSKA, SGH International Centre