This article was written by freelance journalist Nick Harland.
What do you consider when you consider Barcelona?
For some individuals, it might be the year-long sunshine or wonderful sandy seashores. For others, maybe it’s the city’s emblematic Sagrada Familia or cathedral-like Camp Nou. But the Catalonian city is turning into more and more recognized for one thing else fully: its excellence in enterprise schooling.
In Bloomberg’s newest Best B-Schools rating, 4 of the top 20 colleges in Europe have been situated in Barcelona. The QS Global MBA Ranking options seven Barcelona enterprise colleges in its top 100, while the prestigious Financial Times Global MBA Ranking is dwelling to three extra.
In every case, no different city in the world has extra colleges in the record than Barcelona.
So how precisely does a city with a inhabitants of simply 1.6 million maintain so many world-class enterprise colleges? Jan Hohberger is the Associate Dean of the MBA programme at Esade Business School, one among Barcelona’s oldest and best-known colleges. He says the roots could be traced all the manner again to Esade’s beginnings in 1954, after they had to look past their very own shores to set up the nascent college.
“Esade was founded when Spain was still a dictatorship,” he explains. “And when businesspeople in the city tried to create a enterprise college, they couldn’t do it beneath this dictatorship. Esade went to the Jesuits, and IESE went to Opus Dei.
“Then, when Franco died, Spain opened up very quickly to the European Union. What the Spanish firms did was very early on, they began to internationalise.
“Multinational firms in the 90s and early 2000s had extreme internationalisation because the Spanish market was too small. They couldn’t target Germany, France and England as expansion markets, so instead they went to Latin America, to Asia, to Africa… they went international very quickly. Esade and IESE, to a certain extent, did the same,” Hohberger continues.
It meant that Esade and IESE – the subsequent oldest enterprise college in Barcelona – have been left with no alternative however to ‘play the international game,’ as Hohberger describes it. By recruiting from overseas early on, they widened their pool of potential candidates at a time when different colleges have been concentrating on their dwelling market. Nowadays, worldwide scholar recruitment is a key coverage of just about any college in the world.
Back then, it was a revolutionary concept.
Esade’s MBA class is made up of 97% worldwide college students, whereas the IESE MBA worldwide scholar ratio stands at 87%
It helped, after all, that the internationalisation of Spain coincided with Barcelona’s post-Olympics growth. Pre-1992 it was a largely industrial city, scarred by a long time of oppressive rule – and its lack of seashores at the time meant it was typically referred to as the city de espaldas al mar (with its again to the sea). The Olympics modified the notion of Barcelona nearly in a single day, turning it into one among the most vibrant and visited cities in the world. When it comes to worldwide scholar recruitment, that glowing international fame actually helps.
“Barcelona is a very attractive location, starting within a European context but also for other international students,” says Hohberger.
Paula Amorim, the MBA Admissions Director at IESE Business School, agrees. “From a social perspective, Barcelona has long been considered one of the most pleasant cities to live in. It boasts a wonderful climate with the Mediterranean Sea at its doorstep, and it is a comfortable city with many natural contrasts within a short distance.”
Barcelona didn’t simply open itself up in direction of the sea. Long-term internationalisation has introduced not simply range, however a way of openness amongst the city’s residents to new individuals and new cultures. One that comes from the recognition that internationalisation was not a alternative, however a necessity.
“The city has also always been renowned for its openness to people of many nationalities,” says Amorim. “And this cultural diversity has further enriched it, bringing a wealth of art, culture, and most importantly, friendly people.”
That openness additionally extends to the city’s financial insurance policies. A mixture of entrepreneurship-friendly initiatives and comparatively low value of dwelling makes it a sexy place for entrepreneurs to come and take a look at their luck.
“It’s a place where one can try and fail with relatively minimal consequences if things don’t succeed,” says Amorim. According to Hohberger, the city’s enterprise surroundings ‘makes it attractive and active in a lot of dimensions’.
Both colleges proceed to play the worldwide recreation to today. Esade’s MBA class is made up of 97% worldwide college students, whereas the IESE MBA worldwide scholar ratio stands at 87%.
Yet the city’s excellence in enterprise schooling extends past its two oldest colleges. The likes of GBSB Global, EAE and EU Business School all function in the international top 100 of the QS MBA Ranking, whereas EADA has change into a fixture in the prestigious Financial Times Global MBA Ranking. All of their respective MBA courses have a global scholar ratio of over 90%.
Given the sheer variety of colleges vying for consideration inside Barcelona, it’s straightforward to marvel how the city is in a position to maintain so many. After all, Barcelona is a fraction of the measurement of London or Paris, as an example. In some circumstances that dense geography fairly actually brings the city’s colleges nearer collectively: the campuses of Esade and IESE sit simply 200 metres aside, while EADA and GBSB are so shut that they may virtually attain out and contact one another.
But that shut proximity drives every college to do higher, and even leads to casual collaboration between them.
It’s a spot the place one can attempt to fail with comparatively minimal penalties if issues don’t succeed
Paula Amorim, IESE Business School
“The competition is really good and there’s a certain visibility of what’s going on at each school where they have to compete and innovate – you cannot just relax in your own space,” says Hohberger.
Amorim provides that ‘each school has its unique particularities, mission, and value proposition’, but acknowledges the work they do collectively to appeal to worldwide college students to the nation. “We’re always eager to collaborate on events outside of Spain with other schools to promote Spain as a general study destination.”
The gradual improvement of Barcelona’s enterprise college ecosystem can be having a cumulative impact on scholar and employees recruitment. “Now we have this ecosystem… there’s a certain cluster effect from having all of these schools,” explains Hohberger. “When companies or research professors come to visit IESE, they might also visit us and vice versa.”
There are few indicators that Barcelona’s progress is slowing. IESE and Esade stay at the top of the city’s instructional tree, however a brand new wave of colleges have gotten well-known at dwelling and overseas. In Barcelona it seems like each college is taking part in the worldwide recreation – however Hohberger believes that type of competitors can solely hold driving the city’s colleges on.
“We are always pushing each other and getting better all the time. You cannot rest. You have to innovate.”
