The Sobey School of Business at Saint Mary’s University joins the top business schools in the world with EQUIS accreditation by the European Foundation for Management Development (EFMD) Global. Less than two percent of business schools worldwide hold this prestigious accreditation. The Sobey School of Business is also AACSB accredited, and only one percent of business schools worldwide are both AACSB and EQUIS accredited.
The EQUIS accreditation benchmarks the Sobey School against international standards in terms of governance, programs, students, faculty, research, internationalization, ethics, responsibility, and sustainability, as well as its engagement with the world of practice.
Dr. Harjeet Bhabra
“We are very excited and extremely proud to be a part of the EQUIS community. Achieving EQUIS accreditation endorses our school’s vision which is to lead in discovery and learning for global impact,” says Dr. Harjeet Bhabra, Dean of the Sobey School of Business. “EQUIS will provide us with the mechanism for international benchmarking with the best, grow our international partnerships, and keep us focused on achieving the highest quality in everything we do.”
The EQUIS peer review team, consisting of representatives from universities in Spain, Belgium and Canada plus a corporate reviewer from IBM, highlighted the Sobey School’s action on ethics, responsibility, and sustainability initiatives as a reference that can serve others concerned with educating responsible leaders. The business school was commended for its innovation in program development and its responsiveness to the region’s business, societal and economic development needs.
The Sobey School of Business is named after Frank H. Sobey, founder of Empire Company Limited and Sobeys Inc. The Sobey School of Business offers a well-respected Bachelor of Commerce program, with a wide range of specialties, including accounting, computing and information systems, entrepreneurship, finance and human resource management and industrial relations. The most comprehensive business school in Atlantic Canada it also provides a range of graduate-level programs including a Master of Business Administration, an Executive Master of Business Administration, a Master of Finance, a Master of Applied Economics, a Master of Technology Entrepreneurship and Innovation, a Master of Management in Cooperatives and Credit Unions and a well-respected Ph.D. program.
In Fall of 2022, the Sobey School introduced two new graduate programs, the Master of Business Analytics (MBAN) and the Executive Doctorate of Business Administration (EDBA), both designed to give students the skills to succeed in the modern business world. The school is also home to the internationally renowned David Sobey Centre for Innovation in Retailing and Services and four other research centres of excellence.
The EQUIS accreditation is valid for a three-year period. EQUIS is the leading international system of quality assessment, improvement, and accreditation of higher education institutions in management and business administration. EQUIS is managed and run by the European Foundation for Management Development (EFMD) Global and its fundamental objective, linked to the mission of the EFMD Global, is to raise the standard of management education worldwide.