On December 6th and 7th, 2013, the Deans Conference and Secretariat Opening Ceremony of the Alliance of Chinese and European Business School (ACE) was held at Southwestern University of Finance and Economics (SWUFE). Deans from ACE member schools, including RSM Erasmus University, MIP Politecnico Di Milano, University of Leeds, University of Economics Prague, Xiamen University, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, etc., attended the conference. Ms. Liping Xue, the Associate Dean of COB, SUFE was invited to attend the event. As the second event assembled by ACE after the inauguration ceremony held in France this May, the conference aims at promoting the communication and cooperation between Chinese and European business schools and improving Chinese business schools’ education quality in accordance with world-class business schools’ standards. The conference also provides a good opportunity for the world to know the economic and educational development in Chengdu and its role in western China’s development.
Ms. Liping Xue, Associate Dean of COB, SUFE (the fifth from right at the front row) attended the ACE Deans Conference
On the morning of December 6th, the deans paid a visit to SWUFE’s Currency Securities Museum, which was founded in 1998. There are over 50,000 pieces of collections in the museum, including currencies used in different historical periods, securities, bills, insurance policies, supply tickets and so on used in China, which gave a full demonstration of the China’s economic and financial development. The deans all gave very positive feedback to the visit.
Afterwards, the ACE Deans Conference was officially opened at the Western Business School, SWUFE. Prof. Dan Yang, the Vice President of SWUFE and Dean of the Western College of Business, delivered a welcome speech and expressed his sincere gratitude to the support given by Chengdu Municipal Government. Mr. Chong Li, the Director of EFMD Asia, Prof. Wei Shen, the Associate Dean of ESSCA France, and Mr. Feiyi Gao from ACE Secretariat addressed keynote speeches respectively. The attending deans had further communications with each other, signed an cooperation agreement and reached consensus on various issues such as establishing joint degrees, faculty and student exchanges, cooperation in research and journals as well as corporate connections. On the afternoon, the deans also visited to the Panda Base in Chengdu and Tianfu High-tech Window, which is a good example of Chengdu’s development in technologies and economics in recent years.
On December 7th, the ACE Secretariat Opening Ceremony was held at the Liulin campus of SWUFE. Prof. Dewu Zhao, the Party Secretary of SWUFE and Prof. Marc Smelik, the Associate Dean of Leeds University, delivered speeches respectively. SWUFE was selected as ACE’s Secretariat in China by ACE in this May, which will serve for building a communication platform, the coordination of resources, operation of ACE’s administrative and overall affairs and providing related services to ACE members.
Introduction of ACE
ACE was founded with support from the European Foundation for Management Development (EFMD), which is a non-profit membership organization established in 1971. EFMD has a global headquarter in Brussels, Belgium and a regional headquarter in Hong Kong, China. EFMD has been continuously acting as a catalyst for the development of business schools, governments and public organizations worldwide over the past 40 years, so as to promote the overall development of global management education. Now EFMD has over 800 members in 82 countries, including the Wharton School of University of Pennsylvania, London Business School, Microsoft, Coca Cola, etc.
As the first alliance between Chinese and European business schools established in the world, ACE has 10 first-class business schools from mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, and 10 business schools from Europe as its founding members. Instead of providing one-to-one cooperation opportunities, ACE aims at providing a broad cooperation platform for resource sharing, faculty exchanges, cooperative research, trainings of students’ leadership as well as bilateral and multilateral cooperation between its member schools. Through the platform, the member schools can share their education experiences, develop cases and collect data together, conduct joint research which will have significant impact on business practice, share teaching materials and promote faculty and student exchange visits, so as to further improve the education and research quality of Chinese and European business schools.