ESCP Business School, the world’s oldest business school, founded in Paris in 1819, is set to sign MOUs with leading technical institutes from the IIT network in India.
“We’re now moving to collaborate with IITs and have already initiated discussions, and are working toward a formal MOU,” Leon Laulusa, executive president and dean at ESCP Business School, told The PIE News.
“The collaboration will include student exchange, joint research, and faculty mobility. The focus is on bridging business education with broader tech needs.”
Renowned for its high standings in global education rankings like the Financial Times and QS, ESCP aims to collaborate with IITs on joint research, and student and faculty exchanges in areas such as emerging technologies, sustainability, artificial intelligence, and entrepreneurship.
“We are not a traditional engineering school, but we bring the go-to-market knowledge to excellent products coming from applied sciences. That’s where we (IITs and ESCP) complement each other,” stated Laulusa.
Outside of France, we’ve already built models like our partnership with Columbia School of Engineering
Leon Laulusa, ESCP Business School
Building on its dual-degree partnership with Columbia University’s Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science, which merges engineering and management education, ESCP is expected to launch similar collaborations with institutes like IIT Bombay.
“Outside of France, we’ve already built models like our partnership with Columbia School of Engineering. This year there being 10 of them, our students spend one year at ESCP and the next at Columbia. We aim to replicate this with IITs,” added Laulusa.
Prior to IITs, ESCP has had long-standing partnerships with India’s premier management institutes, starting in 1985 with IIM Ahmedabad.
The collaboration, which started with a semester-long student exchange, has now blossomed into dual degree offerings between ESCP and top IIMs, as well as other Indian business schools.
“Today, we work closely with IIM Bangalore, Calcutta, Lucknow, Kozhikode, and SP Jain – the collaboration is excellent,” Laulusa told The PIE.
“The value we offer is unique as students can experience multiple cities. For example, they might spend two days in Paris and three in London during one program week.”
While thousands of Indian students head to France for exchange programs, the flow doesn’t quite go both ways.
French students have been slower to explore opportunities in India, often due to concerns around cultural differences, safety, or just not knowing enough about the country, as previously reported by The PIE.
But schools like ESCP are hoping to change that narrative.
“Each year, about 12 to 15 ESCP student delegates go to IIM Ahmedabad but we do receive more Indian students in return,” said Laulusa.
“India is an incredibly important market – not just in education but in what we can learn from it.”
In order to prioritise India as an exchange destination, Laulusa believes it’s important to highlight the opportunities for industry exposure in the country.
“We want to promote India not just academically but also with corporate connections,” he added.
“The idea is, after studying in India, our students should be able to intern there, either with Indian nationals or large Indian companies.”
While there are currently no plans to build a campus or a research establishment or centre in India, ESCP sees its Dubai campus, part of the Dubai International Finance Centre, as a major draw for Indian and South Asian students.
“We are a unique pan-European school. We have six campuses in Europe: Paris; London; Madrid; Turin; Berlin; and Warsaw. And now the seventh – outside Europe – is in Dubai,” shared Laulusa.
“It was set in 2022 for executive education. And just last December, it received full accreditation as an institution. Now we can grant Emirati degrees. So this is a good opportunity for Indian students to integrate.”
The Dubai campus could help sustain the growth of Indian student enrolment at ESCP, which has been steadily rising.
For the 2024/25 academic year, there are 608 Indian students, reflecting a 16% increase over the past three years. India is now the third largest country of origin for students at the institution, following France and Italy.
The increase in student numbers bodes well with French President Emmanuel Macron’s goal of welcoming 30,000 Indian students to France by 2030, for which the French government has eased visa policies for Indian students.
The strengthening of educational ties between the two countries also presents ESCP with an opportunity to collaborate on AI initiatives with Indian universities, in line with the recent AI Action Summit in Paris, co-chaired by President Macron and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“The shared focus on AI with India and France also presents a unique opportunity to leverage advanced technologies for mutual benefit and global impact,” said Laulusa.
“By 2028 or 2030, if top talent from IITs and beyond say, ‘ESCP is the place to be, to learn, and to become an alum,’ then we have truly succeeded.”
