Audencia launches STOA 2030, its new strategic plan aiming at becoming a higher education group of leading grandes écoles

At a press conference today, Sébastien Tran unveiled the school's strategy for the next five years. The new plan, STOA 2030, aims to position Audencia as a higher education group consisting of leading grandes écoles, and to train a new generation of enlightened decision-makers to address the world's major transitions: economic, ecological, political, media, cultural, social, and technological.

With ECOS 2025, Audencia asserted its ambition to be a better school for the world. With STOA 2030, we reaffirm our aim to become a group of leading schools serving the world's major transitions. We have a significant responsibility: to train enlightened decision-makers who can influence and support society in all its transitions - economic, ecological, social, political, media, cultural, and technological.

This vision is based on three key markers. Firstly, cultivating excellence by developing demanding, rigorous minds with skills aligned to the expectations of the professional world and academic requirements, through programmes recognised at the highest level by national and international bodies. Secondly, aiming for impact, because our role is to support the transformation of individuals, organisations, and society in tangible, measurable, and sustainable ways. Finally, encouraging singularity: Audencia helps each and every one of its students, learners, partners and employees to nurture what makes them unique to achieve their ambitions, so they can build on their uniqueness and make a difference, each in their own way. We want to train a new generation of enlightened decision-makers: men and women capable of understanding, deciding, and acting pragmatically, rigorously and effectively.  Agile across diverse environments, able to connect the local and the global, the short term and the long term, performance, and responsibility. Our teaching method is the key to this, grounded in reality, enriched by transformative experiences, and whether academic, professional, associative, intercultural or multidisciplinary, aimed at imparting more than just skills. It is these human and collective experiences that fuel their convictions and enhance their capacity to act both boldly and appropriately.

STOA 2030 is a promise that is kept every day, in our classrooms, our research projects, through our strong links with companies and in all our commitments that have been put into practice through this strategic plan.

Sébastien Tran, Dean of Audencia

In ancient Greece, the Stoa (Στοά) was a key part of the Athens Agora. It served as a public meeting place where people gathered to interact, debate, and think together. The Stoa is also recognised as the cradle of Stoic philosophy. Just like this open space, Audencia's campuses are places of interaction and personal transformation, sparkling new ideas and creating a collective momentum. STOA implies a vision based on personal ethics and intellectual rigour, making us aware of the world around us with the purpose of addressing  today’s great challenges.

Audencia becomes a higher education group consisting of leading grandes écoles. Each of these institutions embodies its own field of expertise, offering distinct degrees and resources, while fostering strong synergies between them. The learners develop a systemic approach, combining business, geopolitics, ecology, communication, and much more.

In 2027, Audencia will open a school combing programmes in management, geopolitics, political science, and international affairs, to train the next generation of public policy players and decision-makers. It will be Audencia's fourth school, complementing its existing school of management (Audencia Business School), communication (Audencia SciencesCom), and ecological and social transition (Gaïa). The new school will offer recognised Bachelor's and Master's degrees and continuing education and will specialise in cities and territories, public-private cooperation, geopolitics, international development, and the impact of public policies. Located on the Paris campus, this new school will welcome its first cohort in September 2027, aiming to train 500 students by 2030 and to strengthen synergies among all the group's schools.
 

Audencia is expanding its undergraduate offerings by emphasising its international dimension to provide programmes that closely match diverse student profiles. The new selective four-year programme will open in 2026 at Audencia's Paris campus. Designed to reinforce synergies between the group's collaborative campuses, it will include up to two years' experience abroad starting from the end of the first year. With an initial intake of 40 students, the goal is to reach 600 learners within five years.
 

Audencia SciencesCom is the only private school in the sector to award a diploma with a bac+5 qualification. It is strengthening its status as a "grande école de communication et media" through the Bachelor's degree in Project Management in Design and Communication and the Bachelor's degree in Communication, which will start in 2026.

With STOA 2030, Audencia reaffirms its ambition to be develop a regional presence on every continent. Through its undergraduate and graduate programs as well as Executive Education offerings, the aim is to offer solutions tailored to local realities.

This will be the school's sixth collaborative campus. After five successful establishments in China, Brazil, and Australia, Spain will host Audencia's European collaborative campus with ESCI UPF (Escola Superior de Comerç Internacional - Universitat Pompeu Fabra). It is ranked 53rd worldwide and is the number one business school in Spain for Business & Economics (Times Higher Education). From 2026, Audencia students will be able to spend a semester there. Courses focus on innovation, digitalisation, international finance, and intercultural management. Some courses have been tailor-made for Audencia students, such as "Culture & Business in the Mediterranean region" and "Justice, Equity, Diversity & Inclusion."

Already present in Algeria, Senegal, and recently in Morocco, Audencia is seeking to step up its Executive Education activities by opening a campus in Africa. Our institution will continue its mission to design, develop, and deliver programmes for local decision-makers in countries with high development potential. The chosen location will allow Audencia to establish a long-term presence within the local ecosystem—academic, entrepreneurial, and associative—in order to build synergies and meet the specific needs of these regions, particularly through the deployment of its DBA and Executive MBA, alongside new continuing education programmes.

Companies and other organisations face an increasingly complex array of challenges: making successful transitions, meeting the demand for societal impact, leveraging artificial intelligence and data, and rethinking forms of work. In this context, Audencia is reinforcing its role as a committed partner to organisations by launching innovations aimed at professionals.

The school can marshal the extensive expertise of its in-house faculty, staff, and students, along with the strength of its network of external partners. This distinctive approach enables us to offer bespoke solutions to organisations, based on action-research and support programmes, particularly through three main business sectors of current change: supply chain, health, and AI.

The range of offerings for companies has been expanded to meet their needs in terms of upskilling, reskilling, and cross-skilling. Audencia will draw on the expertise of its four schools to produce tailored content, such as a future Executive Master with the Institut de Refondation Publique (IRP). The course is designed to support decision-makers and senior managers (from both the private and public sectors) in reinventing public action, by combining the demands of private-sector management with the specific nature of public interest missions. This training programme leads to level 7 professional certification. It will welcome its first class in January 2026, in a format that is compatible with tight schedules, consisting of 80% distance learning modules and 8 face-to-face seminars, to reconcile flexibility and a wealth of interaction.

At Audencia, there is no room for uniformity. We defend otherness as a source of richness and openness. We empower students to make a difference by nurturing their individual differences. All by developing innovative, personalised solutions.

Audencia continues to embed artificial intelligence at the core of its programmes: all students and staff will be trained in AI. The school intends to further improve student satisfaction by offering increased personalisation and innovative formats that provide unique learning experiences. Specifically, an AI assistant, custom-designed by and for Audencia and available 24 hours a day, will support students in their learning, career orientation, and professional integration — providing personalised assistance at every stage of their journey and operating completely autonomously.

Audencia's new pedagogical signature rests on three promises:

• A personalised pathway to unlock each student's potential
• A systemic understanding of the issues shaping the world, nurtured by the cutting-edge research of our faculty members 
• An outstanding academic experience, meeting the highest standards and recognised both in France and internationally.

This will be reflected in offering cross-disciplinary, à la carte programmes and double degrees across Audencia's different schools. Regarding teaching methods, the school relies exclusively on small group classes to address individual student needs. Audencia is also the only French school where all new teachers must undergo a unique training programme, developed in partnership with Advanced Higher Education, the UK-based organisation responsible for setting standards for professional recognition in higher education. This provides them with international certification.

Looking ahead to 2030, Audencia is stepping up its commitment to promoting an even more responsible and inclusive society, and helping each and every other student to shape their own pathway and unlock their potential, whatever their situation.

To turn inclusion and equal opportunities into a reality rather than just an abstract principle, schools provide an environment in which everyone can learn, develop, and succeed, regardless of their personal constraints or specificities. The Audencia Foundation will reaffirm its role as a supporter of intergenerational solidarity, backed by the commitment of companies and the alumni community, by implementing tailored support mechanisms—particularly its Cordée de la Réussite BRIO in Paris and a new version of the Sirius Pathway. The school will enhance its disability initiatives and efforts to promote student well-being. To ensure that the cost of education never becomes a barrier, Audencia will increase its financial assistance by doubling the number of internal scholarships.

Audencia has strengthened its commitment to society by partnering with the Quartiers d'Affaires association, the leading national network of companies based in disadvantaged neighbourhoods, to support project leaders and enhance the skills of managers of micro-entreprises and SMEs located in the 1,609 disadvantaged neighbourhoods in France. From 2026, 150 people annually will be able to receive support through the association's Grandir programme, and will earn Audencia’s certification. Simultaneously, the school participates as a member of the Forum Économique des Banlieues, a major event that showcases the energy and economic potential of these areas. 

This new institute will be at the interface between academic research and socio-economic stakeholders. The goal is to analyse various forms of vulnerability, assess their impact on public policy, and encourage initiatives within organisations. This will be achieved by uniting the ecosystem around a common platform, producing awareness-raising and training materials, and developing operational recommendations. The work will concentrate on four priority themes: isolation and inequality, health and ageing well, disability, employability and skills.

• 12,000 students
• 150 million euros budget
• 700 employees, including 250 permanent faculty members
   

Audencia unveils its new brand platform, fully aligned with the ambition of STOA 2030. The world is changing, and at Audencia, we aim to train individuals who will drive this change and transform it. Audencia teaches its students to understand and assert their uniqueness – in their own way, believing that their potential to change the world lies in their differences. This belief is reflected in our new slogan: "Change. Your way."

Founded in 1900, Audencia is one of Europe's leading business schools. It is EQUIS, AACSB and AMBA accredited. As the first business school in France to join the United Nations' Global Compact initiative and a signatory of its Principles of Responsible Management Education, Audencia has always been committed to training and supporting innovative, responsible managers with hybrid skills who make a positive contribution to the major challenges facing our organisations, our societies and our planet. Audencia has also created Gaïa, the very first business school dedicated to ecological and social transition. By co-creating with its stakeholders, Audencia produces and disseminates knowledge that has an impact on scientific literature, the content of its courses, business practices and society as a whole. It thus contributes to the following three major challenges: the creation and use of responsible technologies and information, the definition and adoption of managerial approaches that foster inclusive organisations and societies, and the design and implementation of sustainable business and development models. Audencia offers programmes in management and communication ranging from bachelor's degrees to doctorates.  It has signed agreements with 250 academic institutions abroad and more than 900 national and international companies. It has more than 8,800 students, 187 professors and researchers and a network of more than 47,000 graduates. To find out more, visit the website: www.audencia.com and follow us on social networks: LinkedIn / Instagram / X @audencia.