DIRECTOR OF PROGRAMMES
PROGRAMMES DEPARTMENT
Nicolas ARNAUD
“In 2021, we invested in the future”
“Audencia’s Programmes Department is tackling 2022 with ambition, aware of the strengths and qualities of its offering. Our sights are set high, with the launches of new programmes in France and abroad, signing of new academic partnerships as well as the arrival of our students on new campuses.”
By 2025, Audencia’s mission is to welcome
10 000
students to all of its campuses both in France and abroad
1/5
What is your assessment of 2021?
2021 was a year in which we significantly developed almost all of our programmes with a new model for SciencesCom, the Bachelor, Grande Ecole and also the Masters of Science.
In tandem, we also repositioned some of the Specialised Masters courses (notably Marketing Design & Creation, Digital Strategies & Data Marketing, Financial Strategies & Responsible Investments and Responsible Management of Sports Organisations) in order to align them with the school’s strategy, but also to put forward the possibility of a solid and enhanced work/study offering. This development was accompanied by the creation of an integrated ATC. As a result, our programmes’ offerings have never seen as much change as in 2021. We have invested in the future! While overall uptake has been extremely satisfactory, we can see that our environment is pushing us to go even further. This is why we must increase our efforts to make our programmes increasingly more attractive and reinforce our commercial and marketing actions. These programmes are run by Audencia or jointly with partners that are renowned in their domain, as was the case in 2021 with the launch of the first hybrid BBA in France, the Big Data & Management BBA, in partnership with Centrale Nantes. 2021 was also the year that allowed us to accelerate structuring of the Student Life Division’s teams headed by Claude Lombard and consequently enhance our “student services” offering. This resulted in the development of the schemes concerning health, Bee Well, the Welcome Pack (a dual version information pack intended for students, to be used before and during their integration at Audencia), funding assistance and the launch of the Sirius programme, which is a free foundation course to be proposed from September 2022 to school-leavers from vocational establishments who have doubts about whether they can continue into higher education. This year-long course will also offer them the possibility of joining the Audencia Bachelor programme via a specific route.
2/5
What different approaches have you set up for maintaining Audencia excellence, despite the pandemic?
In the health context, which could be anxiety-provoking for some of our students, all the teams from the Programmes Department, supported by the professors, the International Affairs Department and the Careers teams did their utmost to imagine and design, with agility, services that were adapted to the health context.
To mention some examples, there was remote follow-up for career matters, the creation of an ad hoc semester to respond to the impossibility of international mobility and the redesign of the mobility offering for 2022 focused on Europe in order to optimise the rate of students on the move. We also should not forget the great support from the faculty, the Learning & Quality Development Department and the Digital Transformation and Information Systems Department regarding all our teaching, which had to be switched to remote platforms. This was done with excellence, responsiveness, high performance, flexibility and responsibility. So, I would like to take the advantage of this interview to salute the unfailing commitment shown by all the teams at AUDENCIA.
3/5
What is your vision for 2022?
We are tackling 2022 with ambition, aware of our strengths and qualities and with high expectations.
2022 must enable us to enhance the development of our programmes in 2021 with expected growth in enrolment in each of our programmes, and in work/study courses. Of course, 2022 will also be the year in which we unveil the location of our future campus in Paris. 2022 will also be the first year of our Sirius programme.
4/5
What are your objectives between now and 2025, within the framework of the ECOS 2025 plan?
By 2025, Audencia’s mission is to welcome 10,000 students to all of its campuses both in France as well as abroad and especially in China as well as Brazil. For France, the School’s strategic plan involves developing almost all of our programmes on the Paris campus with a significant growth boost for our programmes for high school leavers.
More generally, with regard to this subject, the Programmes Department is perfectly on track, in line with the objectives set! In fact, most of the projects announced in ECOS 2025 are already well advanced and an annual progress report is officially presented to the stakeholders that make up our ecosystems.
5/5
What are your CSR commitments?
In addition to everything we have mentioned in terms of inclusion and CSR education for many years, the next few years will enable us to further consolidate our position on these issues.
Thus, all the students on all the programmes will necessarily come into contact with Gaia from the start to the 2022 academic year onwards. Next September, the Grande Ecole programme will be launching the possibility of completing a semester in Master 1 within the Gaia set-up. This programme is taught entirely in English, with a catalogue of hybrid lectures, including hard sciences, humanities and social sciences. The seminars at the start of the academic year will all be focused, under the aegis of Audencia, on Gaia inside from 2022! Finally, the partnership with The Shift Project must lead us to develop our ‘traditional’ management courses by ensuring greater integration of the challenges of transition! In addition, inclusion is also a strong dimension supported by the school. With the Sirius programme, which is complementary to the BRIO scheme, we want to go even further than the booster programme for high school leavers in technological subjects. There will also be development in community life regarding aspects of integration. A support service for computer equipment has also been set up. Finally, an increase in internal scholarship budgets has been put in place with almost 1.3 million euros (to which also should be added the 2.7 million for scholarships in international recruitment).
© AUDENCIA 2022