Firstly, it is with great relief that we have witnessed student mobility regain momentum at global level. Furthermore, the change in teaching model has had an impact on our activities, as we have had to send almost twice as many students abroad to top-quality institutions.

Despite the very difficult international context (wars, declining Chinese demographics, fewer Chinese students being sent abroad, the uncertain economic environment) as regards admissions, the team has managed to improve its results compared with 2022. Their response was strong and unwavering and I would like to take this opportunity to thank them all.

2023 was marked by many successes.

Firstly, one of the high points of 2023 was securing our presence in China, which involved recruiting additional lecturers and ensuring that all the courses taught on the various Chinese campuses were perfectly managed. Last June, we were also able to celebrate the first graduations of our students under the SAFTI banner (a new title), which was a real source pride!

Last year also witnessed the opening of our campus in São Paulo in Brazil where we activated our 2^nd cohort of the Grande Ecole program on which 80 students were registered, proof in numbers of the operation’s success!

Today and since 2023, Audencia is able to offer 25 programs of an excellent level, excluding business courses, and at partner institutions such as the University of Columbia, Oxford University, Harvard Division of Executive Education, the Istituto Marangoni and the New York Film Academy. We also took advantage of the year to sign partnerships with prestigious universities, mostly with triple accreditation, including the University of Edinburgh, INSPER in São Paulo, ANTAI Shanghai Jiatong University in China, the University of Auckland, the Copenhagen Business School and the CUNEF (the Complutense University Business School) for a dual diploma in Madrid, not forgetting our 4 offshore campuses in Brazil.

Finally, in 2023, we were also able to propose a winter program that attracted 120 participants and a summer term that drew together 280 students, i.e., the equivalent of 30 modules in all, totaling approximately 720 hours of lectures, making it a very full year, in many respects!

The very nature of our division’s activity may seem incompatible with CSR… Yet, on the other hand, our activity allows us to meet people and open up to the world. To become less ethnocentric, it is unfortunately necessary to emit some carbon, even if it is not the only solution. We observe this even more so among our partners: there are people that need to be visited! They need us to reach out to the least well-off and fight against isolation. As a result, we make sure we thoroughly examine the reasons for our travel! If the aim behind it is objective, then this legitimizes such travel. We are also working to optimize our trips so as to make the most of them. Secondly, we support Audencia’s approach of training people in situ rather than having them come to us, in order to limit the carbon impact of travel. Lastly, in conjunction with the Gaia school in particular, we support CSR-themed programs, especially in Brazil.

For us, 2024 will be a year of consolidation, enabling us to offer an even more qualitative and personalized product range. Our aim is to provide each student with the best possible support in their projects to ensure their personal development. At the same time, we need to work towards more and more internationalization on the domestic front and remind people of the benefits of cultural openness without necessarily having to engage in travel with high carbon emissions. Finally, 2024 will witness the accomplishment or progress of several major projects: for Brazil, the launch of 4 collaborative campuses (FDC Belo Horizonte, FAE in Curitiba, CESUPA in Belem) which will already be at full capacity, the finalization of our international offering for our multi-skills bachelor’s degrees, and the opening of our excellence program in Massachusetts. Audencia will thus be the only establishment able to allow its best students to study at the Harvard Division of Continuing Education and then Boston University. In 2024, we will also make it possible for Grande Ecole program students to spend the summer prior to their last year (master 2) at the Harvard Division of Continuing Education or the London School of Economics. The following semester, they will have a choice between the American university or Europe, at Bayes Business School (City University of London). Lastly, their final semester of study can take place at the Copenhagen Business School in Denmark, the Bocconi University in Italy or at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. The response to presentations made to foundation course students illustrates the strong momentum surrounding these announcements, contributing to an increase in registrations for the next competitive entrance exams. In 2024, we should be three-quarters of the way to our goal for 2025 in terms of students targeted, totaling 1,700 students! Our associated objective will also be to work towards well-consolidated management across all the regions in which we are established, and to benefit from a more substantial body of both temporary and permanent teaching staff in China.