The INSEEC School of Business and Economics (French pronunciation: /ɪnsɛk/; French meaning of the acronym INSEEC: Institut des Hautes Études Economiques et Commerciales; English: Institute of Higher Studies in Economics and Commerce) is a French private business school grande école and a member of the French Conférence des grandes écoles (CGE).
The school has French, European and international campuses in Paris, Bordeaux, Lyon, Chambéry, Marseille, Beaune, London, Monaco, Geneva, Lausanne, Montreux, Madrid, Barcelona, Abidjan and Shanghai as well as San Francisco. It was previously called the INSEEC Business School until its renaming in 2019.
Founded in 1975 by José Soubiran in Bordeaux, the INSEEC School of Business and Economics grew gradually by acquiring other academic institutions in business administration, economics, engineering, design, social and political science in France and abroad.
INSEEC Grande Ecole is the founding school of the French private university INSEEC U now called OMNES Education.
History The Grande Ecole INSEEC School of Business & Economics grew at a fast pace, and especially internationally, underpinned by Career Education Corporation until October 24, 2013. From a local School founded and based in Bordeaux, it has developed tiers with the American Education System via its Franco-American Business School: the MBA Institute - American BBA INSEEC Campus in Paris, which prepares French and International Students for an MBA in the United States, enabling them to obtain a diploma at the end, recognised both in Europe and in the US. Strong bounds have been created with several American Universities such as: Emory (Atlanta), Indiana University of Pennsylvania or San Francisco State University allowing students to dive into American Campuses. 1975: Founded by José Soubiran, a French businessman born in 1944, Knight of the Legion of Honour (French Order of Merit), founder of the first institute for psycho-motor skills. 1976: INSEEC was the first French Business School to sign an agreement with the University of California, Berkeley in 1976. 1983: Establishment of the School in Paris. 1988: the ECE (Ecole de Commerce Européenne): the European School of Business was founded in Lyon and Bordeaux. 1990: Establishment of a Campus in Lyon. 1994: Acquisition of the MBA Institute, a Franco-American Business School established in Paris since 1982, providing an American education and preparing French students to study in the best MBAs in the USA. The MBA Institute then became the American BBA INSEEC-MBA Institute, whose Director of Program is Robert Bradford, a San Francisco State University alumnus. 1996: INSEEC acquired Sup de pub, a former university from Havas EuroRSCG. 2003: The Chicago-based corporation Career Education Corporation, the leading American company in education, acquired the INSEEC Group. 2008: INSEEC Business School becomes a Grande Ecole, and thus member of the Conférence des Grandes Ecole at the Chapter of Management Schools. 2009: INSEEC starts a double-degree agreement with the Marburg University in Germany. INSEEC starts a tripartite agreement with Griffith College and the SRH Hochschule Berlin. The same year, establishment of INSEEC's incubating Junior Enterprise on the Bordeaux campus. 2010: The INSEEC Group purchases the International University of Monaco. INSEEC starts a partnership with Arts et Métiers ParisTech (ENSAM Engineering School). 2011: INSEEC starts a tripartite agreement with Tsinghua University, Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines University 2012: The INSEEC Group buys the Consular Business School of Chambéry (ESC Chambéry) to create INSEEC Alpes Savoie Business School, an additional campus in the Alps. The incubant on-campus students' consulting association: INSEEC Conseil becomes officially Junior Enterprise-accredited, after being bestowed this label upon by the French National Confederation of Junior Enterprises. 2013: Career Education Corporation cedes its shares of the INSEEC Group. APAX Partners and BPI France acquires the INSEEC Group, making INSEEC's shareholders fully French again. 2014: Acquisition of CREA Geneva - Switzerland. Establishment of the Luxury Business Institute (LBI) in Shanghai. 2015: The ECE (Ecole de Commerce Européenne): the European School of Business becomes the BBA - INSEEC (BBA as for Business Bachelor), a 4-year American Bachelor curriculum. Establishment the same year of a Strategy Cluster in Lyon, specialised in Strategic Management. Establishment of INSEEC Wines & Spirits Campus in Beaune (Burgundy). 2016: Establishment of the Campus in San Francisco. APAX buys Schools from the American group Lauréate International, namely: EBS, ESCE, ECE, IFG and the CEPC. 2017: The INSEEC Group is renamed INSEEC U. The Grande Ecole INSEEC Business School becomes INSEEC School of Business and Economics. INSEEC Business School is AMBA-accredited. INSEEC U. acquires HEIP (French: Hautes Etudes Internationales et Politiques, established in 1899 as: Ecole des Hautes Etudes Sociales), a Higher Education Institute specialised in Political Science, Diplomacy and International Relations, with campuses in Paris, London and Lyon. Establishment of a Crea Geneva campus in Lausanne, Switzerland. 2018: HEIP (Hautes Etudes Internationales et Politiques - part of INSEEC U. Group) signs an agreement with Macquarie University in Sydney. Start of a cooperation with the European Think-Tank LEAP (French: Laboratoire Européen d'Anticipation Politique, English: European Laboratory of Political Anticipation) established in 1997 as "Europe2020" by Marie-Helene Caillol (the current president of LEAP) and Franck Biancheri, founder of the European student network AEGEE (French: Association des États Generaux de l'Europe). 2019: INSEEC U. valued at almost 1 billion Euros and becomes the first French unicorn in higher Education. The CINVEN fund buys INSEEC U. from APAX. Cooperation initiated with the Citris Foundry, an innovation and start-up incubator on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley, with the HAX accelerator founded by the French entrepreneur Cyril Ebersweiler and Sean O'Sullivan, with the American multinational Sales Force, and with the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute as part of the Art + Tech programme of INSEEC U. 2020: INSEEC U. becomes financially the strongest Business School in France. 2021: INSEEC U. is renamed as OMNES Education. 2022: Acquisition of the EU Business School Group by OMNES Education, with campuses in Barcelona, Geneva (which is now the second campus of OMNES in Geneva), Montreux and Munich. The same year, acquisition of Centro de estudios de innovacion - a School in Marketing and Design in Madrid, Spain. 2023: Opening of a new campus in Brittany, in the city of Rennes.
Values INSEEC's values, like most other French Grande Ecoles, revolve around the humanism of the French Enlightenment era and the School of Thought of French Humanism as well as the French Renaissance. As such, French Grande Ecole Educational Institutions follow principles of universalism, knowledge emancipation and Cartesianism, following the influence of the French Encyclopedists of the 17th century.
This has led to pedagogic influences into INSEEC's Grande Ecole curriculum such as the compulsory "humanist internship", as part of which students have to carry out a work placement in a charity or an association. Other pedagogic unique features of Grande Ecole and INSEEC which are typically French and ensue from the French Enlightenment: the teaching of general culture which represents a third of the first year Grande Ecole curriculum for Freshmen. Double-degrees in law, anthropology, philosophy and humanities in general is also possible via partnerships with Bordeaux University or the UVSQ (Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines University / University of Versailles / University of Paris Saclay).
Campuses The INSEEC Business School has campuses in: Paris (several campuses) Bordeaux (several campuses) Lyon Chambéry (in the French Alps) Beaune (in Burgundy) Rennes (Brittany) London, United Kingdom Monaco, Monaco (French Riviera) Geneva, Switzerland (several campuses) Lausanne, Switzerland Marseille, France Montreux, Switzerland Munich, Germany Madrid, Spain Barcelona, Spain Shanghai, China San Francisco, United States (several campuses) Abidjan, Ivory Coast
Academic curricula Grande Ecole academic features
The Grande Ecole INSEEC School of Business & Economics provides provides Grande-Ecole degrees, i.e. solely Master's Degrees, MBAs and PhDs (Grande Ecoles do not bestow diploma lower than a European Master's degree level). OMNES Education provides bachelor's degree, non-Grande Ecole Master's degrees, Grande-Ecole Master's Degrees, MBAs and Diploma, as some Schools of the OMNES group are not Grande Ecoles. A Grande Ecole, literally "Great School", is a higher education institution and part of a French league of universities, which select students via national competitive entrance examinations (in French: concours) to safeguard meritocracy and impartiality.
National competitive examinations as prerequisite of French Grande Ecoles One of the prerequesite of a Grande Ecole (along with having the Grande Ecole-label), is to select students via national competitive examinations. The latter are well-acknowledged to be particularly stringent. While students prepare for these National Competitive examinations right after their high school diploma (often obtained with a magna cum laude or summa cum laude) during a two-year preparatory programme in high schools proposing such curricula; some other students will start an Undergraduate or Bachelor's degree and prepare for the national Competitive examinations along their studies at Universities or private Colleges in France or abroad. Both pathways have their own advantages and drawbacks.
For candidates coming from preparatory classes, the French national competitive examinations are organised in pools of examinations (Banque de Concours d'Épreuves). INSEEC belongs to the BCE pool. Grande Ecoles only deliver master's degree, with curricula which vary from 3 years up to 2 years (3 years, after successful completion of the national competitive examinations after an Undergraduate Degree-level; 2 years after successful completion of the national entrance competitive examination at a Bachelor-Degree level).
The most selective will enroll less than 10% of candidates, i.e. 90% of candidates are bound to fail, not because they are perform poorly, but because a handful of students performed better, which is in itself, the principle of a competitive examination. In some Grande Ecole, it is possible to retake a Grande Ecole national competitive examination as many as one wishes, whereas some others limit the possibilities to retake the examination to a maximum of three times.
Curriculum and academic features
First Grande Ecole academic year (equivalent to the last year of a European Bachelor's degree)
During the first Grande Ecole academic year, which is the equivalent of a Bachelor (sometimes referred to in French as Licence 3 or abbreviated L3), an induction week will take place, followed by a typical student orientation.
Throughout this week, groups of students will have to work out a project, not obviously dealing with business and economics, which will have to be presented along with a report in front of a panel of professors. The goal is to foster group work, team spirit, break the ice among first year students, meet milestones deliverables and train student to defend a thesis in front of a jury, in an academic and corporate way.