EQUIS Accreditation Support Services

Internationalisation is one of EQUIS’s signature emphases. A school is assessed on the international dimension running through its strategy, its faculty and student profile, its programmes, and its partnerships and mobility. This is inherently an evidence question—demonstrating international orientation requires data, not assertion. We support it by analysing and structuring internationalisation evidence and by benchmarking a school’s international profile against relevant peers, so the self-assessment can show the international character of the institution clearly.

Corporate engagement and external stakeholders form the other distinctive emphasis. EQUIS looks for genuine connections with the corporate world—employer relationships, industry partnerships, executive education where relevant, and demonstrable external impact. We help schools structure and analyse the evidence of these connections and their impact, and benchmark engagement against peers, again as analytical and evidentiary support rather than as a substitute for the relationships and activities themselves, which belong to the school.

Faculty & research

EQUIS assesses faculty and their research contributions, and EFMD’s recent updates have sharpened the research standard’s focus. We support this with research-productivity and citation analytics, faculty-research profiling, and benchmarking of publications and impact—including the international dimension of research—against relevant peers. We align these analyses to the current EQUIS framework and terminology, and verify how a measure relates to the criteria rather than asserting formal requirements.

We begin with an initial consultation to understand the school’s strategy, international profile, and goals, followed by a readiness and gap assessment against the current EQUIS Standards & Criteria. We then map the evidence and data the Self-Assessment Report will draw on, conduct the analysis and benchmarking (research, internationalisation, corporate engagement, programmes, KPIs), and provide documentation support—organising findings into clear evidence tables and reports.

Engagement continues through review and refinement and, where the school wishes, continuous-improvement support across the accreditation cycle. Throughout, we are explicit that the Self-Assessment Report, the peer-review visit, and the accreditation decision belong to the school and EFMD; our role is the analytical and evidentiary groundwork beneath them.

Institutions we support

EQUIS accredits a wide range of institutions—from private business schools focused on postgraduate and executive education to public university faculties of management with broad programme portfolios. We work across that range, in international and multi-campus contexts, tailoring support to each school’s strategy and international character rather than a fixed template.

Questions we help institutions answer

Where are our evidence gaps against the EQUIS chapters? How does our research and international profile compare with peers? How can internationalisation be evidenced with data? How can corporate-engagement impact be structured and analysed? How can institutional KPIs be benchmarked and monitored across the accreditation cycle?