Institut Mines-Télécom Business School (IMTBS) is one of 13 graduate schools in the Institut Mines- Télécom, one of France’s major educational and research establishments. In addition to IMTBS, the Institute groups many of the country’s key engineering schools and plays a central role in developing both ground-breaking and applied research, innovation and education for engineers, managers, specialists and faculty. The schools of the Institute are acknowledged for their excellence at both national and international levels. Institut Mines-Télécom is a major actor in both the French research landscape and in European research programmes, accounting for 192 research contracts in 7th Framework Programme for EU Research, for example. The Institute combines strong academic legitimacy, close corporate relations and a unique focus on four key transformative fields of the 21st century: Digital Technologies, Energy, Ecology and Production.
Developed within the tradition of French Grandes Écoles, IMTBS is an educational establishment internationally renowned in its field, with very close engagement with business and government. In addition to undergraduate and graduate programmes, the school offers over 100 executive programmes annually, and its governing body includes executives from global firms such as Vivendi, BNP, Google, Airbus Group, and Orange. IMTBS students are required to spend at least six months of their educational period on in-company work placements, and the school actively develops research projects with corporate partners and works closely with local networks of SMEs.
Training the entrepreneurs of the future is a priority for IMTBS and the Institut Mines-Télécom more broadly. The Strategic Entrepreneurship in the Era of Digitalisation (SEED) majeur, for example, takes an innovative approach to entrepreneurship education. In the programme, entrepreneurs from IMTBS (management) et Télécom SudParis (engineers) and @ENSIIE (computer science) come together to spend one year ‘interning‘ in their own company, with their own office at the IMT Starter incubator. The IMT Starter incubator supports and finances the launch of some of the best digital start-ups in France. Thus far, the incubator has propelled more than 250 start-ups representing +3000 jobs and hundreds of millions in turnover.
At IMTBS, we understand the critical importance of training the next generation of changemakers, and an interest in constantly innovating in entrepreneurship education led us to join the outstanding consortium of partners in the Educators for Impact project. We believe that the development of an entrepreneurial mindset in students and educators should not be limited to business schools, but can be beneficial in all disciplines, helping students and educators better understand how to create value and impact in society. We look forward to working with our partners to develop replicable and cross-disciplinary pedagogies for entrepreneurial skills development that can be easily accessed or incorporated into various contexts.
Authored by Monica Holly Collins (IMTBS)