THIBAUT BARDON
Academic Director
ACADEMIC DEPARTMENT
Whether through the new format for the academic departments, updating of the Faculty Handbook or new members of the faculty with international and hybrid profiles, 2022 allowed the Academic Department to gain in impact with the school’s internal and external stakeholders.
200
The number of faculty members at Audencia by 2025.
How would you assess 2022?
On 1st January 2022, the new generation of academic departments were created. This work, which is the result of a team effort, has been enhanced by creation of the department manager position, but also the arrival of new members of the faculty with international and hybrid profiles.
In the last year, our operating methods were also renewed thanks to updating the Faculty Handbook. The cross-disciplinary objective was to make the departments more effective and easier to understand for our stakeholders in order to increase their impact. 2022 also witnessed a new assessment system for our professors, in alignment with the ECOS 2025 strategic plan and based around 2 major pillars: academic excellence, which is evaluated according to its educational and scientific impact, on the one hand; and commitment with regard to the school and society as a whole, on the other hand! Additionally, all the members of the Academic Division have been a creative force within the scope of many projects designed to create or rework content proposed by the Programmes Division: the Gaïa programme, the forthcoming 20 new MSc, the digitisation of one semester of the Grande Ecole programme, the new hybrid bachelors, etc. The professors have also enabled Audencia to renew certain strategic partnerships with businesses within the scope of the research chairs. In addition, there have also been major projects enabling the faculty to display its influence, especially from a teaching viewpoint, starting with the Gaïa Case Bootcamp that has reinforced the production of case studies, or also the first group from the Lighthouse programme, which involves strengthening the training of faculty members to attain the best international standards in the subject.
What is your vision for 2023?
The objective for the year is first of all to continue the positive dynamic that we began two years ago. Thereafter, and above all, the real challenge, which will have a strong impact on the faculty, will be to adopt the multi-campus approach with the opening of the new site in Paris and strengthening of activities deployed in the Ile de France region. This will come hand in hand with reinforcement of activities abroad, especially in China, via our new hybrid programmes launched in September 2022.
Our objective is also to continue supporting our faculty in strengthening its expertise in relation to ecological transition. A certain number of initiatives have been launched, notably as part of the project with The Shift in 2022. New schemes will be proposed next year, particularly in terms of training for faculty members.
Finally, we want to take advantage of 2023 to continue supporting internal needs via several services, including monitoring provided through the Knowledge Hub or also improved feedback on calls for proposals by the R&B unit.
What are your goals for the completion of the strategic plan, within the scope of the ECOS plan?
Naturally, our aim is to make progress on implementation of the projects envisaged in the ECOS 2025 plan. In this instance, we are rather ahead of schedule at Division level, with the most significant projects already completed.
The next few months will therefore serve to consolidate what has already been put in place. More generally, the objective between now and 2025 is to continue to strengthen the impact of the faculty in relation to ecological and social transition. This will be achieved by increasing the number of faculty members and by reinforcing our impact on the various regions where we are present, in both France and abroad.
What are your CSR commitments?
Through supporting faculty members in strengthening their CSR expertise, the aim is to promote and reinforce the creation of impactful content for our internal target audiences (employees, students in initial education and learners in continuing education) as well as our external target audiences (the general public, partner businesses and alumni).
Our main contribution is content that will serve both teaching and research. However, we are aware of the impact of the travel involved in our work in France and abroad, so we are beginning to work on a policy of virtuous mobility, to ensure sustainable travel by our professors.
RONNIE DAS
Head of Audencia’s Marketing department
All of the members of the Marketing Division committed to ECOS 2025!
“After 1.5 years of journey and integration into Audencia’s culture, I feel my professional career has received a positive boost towards the right direction. The school supports and promotes a healthy and supportive work environment. Nurtured by the school’s research led environment, I have been able to flourish and improve my research objectives drastically since joining this school. Audencia is also very proactive in terms of supporting and developing talent. I feel privileged and accomplished by stepping into the head of department role within 8 months of starting my new role at Audencia. I also feel privileged to be an important part of management team in driving organisational changes. This is the first time I have been part of a directorial board with high gender diversity and female personnel occupying managerial roles. The marketing department I lead consists of 25 full time academics with diverse teaching and research expertise. Our academic colleagues are delivering some of the cutting-edge research in retail, local production, virtual reality, e-commerce, machine learning, human technology interaction, consumer behaviour, art marketing etc. Pedagogically we are also driving high level teaching innovation in conjunction with industry from France and abroad. Selected marketing department colleagues are also driving thought revolution in management practice by developing and transforming our – signature school of sustainable and ecological thinking – Gaïa. Colleagues in our department regularly engage in debates and discussions on how to incorporate more sustainable thoughts in teaching the future of marketing and management practice. Our department is playing a vital role in driving the school’s ECOS 2025 strategy, both through innovative research and through responsible thought leadership in teaching the future of marketing and management practice.”
