“NEOMA has taken its place on the world stage”

NEOMA has scaled up its global network of partner institutions significantly in 2026. Alexandre Pourchet, Associate Dean for Programmes and International Affairs, unpacks this strategy, which is designed to give students a wider choice of first-class learning opportunities. 

In 2026, NEOMA has entered into no fewer than 30 new partnerships with prestigious institutions worldwide. Prior to signing these agreements, what were the core strengths of the School’s international network? 

NEOMA already had a strong foothold in Asia, particularly in Korea, Japan, Singapore and Hong Kong. The School has an absolutely incredible, really strong network in this region. Take Hong Kong, for instance, where we have partnerships with every one of the top five institutions. We’re still missing one partner in Singapore, but it’s a particularly tough one to get. In Europe, our reach is already quite strong, especially in Italy. Broadly speaking, the School already collaborates with over 400 partners, which means we can send between 2,200 and 2,500 students abroad every year across all our programmes. It also means we can offer immersive international experiences to smaller groups of students. Because, as you’ll remember, our students are hosted by our partner institutions, as NEOMA has deliberately chosen not to operate international campuses. 

With this in mind, what have your objectives been? 

It hasn’t been so much about increasing the number of agreements as about teaming up with leading institutions in selected countries and targeting partners with standout expertise. And not just in management. We set our sights on North America, where we already had partners, of course, but not at the same level in terms of quality as the ones in Asia. In Europe, we’ve also worked to strengthen our coverage in the United Kingdom and Scandinavia. With North America, Asia and Europe covered, the idea is to give our students a range of options. 

Another challenge for us has been to target fields like science and technology, as well as the arts and humanities. Areas of expertise, in other words, that we might not have in-house or be in a position to offer across all our programmes. The objective is to give our students an experience that’s different from what they will have at NEOMA.

NEOMA also wanted to offer courses that combine disciplines: management with humanities, film, science and so on. Can you give an example? 

The most notable example is UCLA, a US school of film and, more broadly, entertainment. It’s a valuable experience for future managers to get exposure to industries that have their own distinct rules and cultures. At the University of Edinburgh in the UK, our students will take courses in social sciences, humanities, philosophy and geopolitics more broadly. At Caltech in the US, our students will be immersed in a world-class scientific environment. The aim isn't to turn them into scientists, but to expose them to the research environment and laboratory work. They’ll be able to see how scientific knowledge is generated, how it’s turned first into patents and then into companies, and how to secure funding. At Columbia in the States, they’ll tackle international relations, with quite a strong emphasis on the legal aspects. 

These experiences show students that there are many ways to learn and work. I think this will also be extremely valuable when they join a company and encounter different approaches and ways of learning. 

So, what kinds of expertise will you be looking for next? 

We’re keen to grow our political science network more. We already have courses and partnerships in geopolitics, but we want to do better in political science specifically. The plan would be to find a top‑tier international partner in the field. 

What are your top priorities for the year ahead? 

The first concerns the United States. More specifically, we want to carry on building our relationships with Ivy League institutions (see opposite). This prestigious group includes eight institutions, and we're working with two of them at the moment. The goal would be to develop partnerships with three or four in all. 

The second priority is Australia. We don’t currently have a strong enough presence there, even though there’s a real demand from our students. So, it’s important to be in a position to address this demand. 

In Europe, we’re going to look to the UK, and London in particular, which is home to five or six excellent institutions. We’re not working with them yet, and the idea is to strengthen that part of our network a little. 

Are there still regions in China you want to break into? 

Yes, in China, the C9 includes nine very high-level institutions — the equivalent of the Ivy League in the US. Right now, we work with four of them, and the target is to develop two or three more.

Today, two major powers dominate the international stage: the United States and China. The idea is to have an equally robust network in both countries, with top-quality institutions.

What do these new partnerships tell us about NEOMA? 

They show that NEOMA is a highly-respected school worldwide. The fact that we work with these different internationally renowned institutions shows that NEOMA has taken its place on the world stage. Several top-tier institutions were already familiar with us because we have won many awards, including the AACSB Innovation Award, which is well known among major North American institutions. The progress we’ve made in a significant number of rankings — including the Financial Times league tables — is opening lots of doors for us, whether in the United States or even in China.