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WUR, TIAS join to offer MBA

18 Nov 2016

European business school TIAS and Wageningen University & Research are joining forces. From September 2017, it will be possible to follow an MBA with a focus on Food and Agribusiness.

European business school TIAS and Wageningen University are joining forces. From September 2017, it will be possible to follow an MBA with a focus on Food and Agribusiness.

Wageningen University & Research (WUR) is, it says, a research institution which not only develops high quality knowledge within the domain of healthy nutrition and the living environment, but also helps to apply this knowledge all over the world. WUR trains professionals who, the university believes, in the near and far future, will provide breakthroughs in knowledge and technology and is internationally a leading organization in the field of nutrition and the living environment.

WUR notes that the agricultural world has become steadily more complex in the past few years. Within the Food & Agri sector, the demand for ‘Wageningen’ knowledge (post academic education) among managers, strategists and CEOs is, it says, increasing. Wageningen University & Research has made a deliberate choice not to set up its own MBA, but to join forces with a partner that has years of proven experience in the MBA world.

Business School TIAS is, according to WUR, a logical partner, simply because TIAS has a clear link with business and society.

“This initiative fits in with the strategic plan of Wageningen University & Research,” said Prof. Dr. ir. Louise O. Fresco, chairman of the Board of Governors of Wageningen University & Research.. “It offers our alumni – on their way to an executive position – the opportunity of further professionalizing themselves in strategic management skills in the Food & Agri context. It is a unique opportunity for executives to study in depth the specific dynamics of the Food & Agri sector.”

“MBAs are getting more and more multidisciplinary. The market needs managers who know how to deal with a world that is changing ever more rapidly. There is not just one way of solving a problem, a problem can be tackled in different ways,” said Prof. Dr. Kees Koedijk, dean and director of TIAS School for Business and Society. “These ‘wicked problems’ are analyzed in the new MBA by means of real-life cases from the participants' companies. The combination of an academic program - that makes use of different learning formats - and a Personal Leadership Program will enable the participants of this MBA to achieve their career targets.”

TIAS offers the basis for the program in the form of the Executive MBA, which consists of various core modules. The program teaches the participants to view their profession from different perspectives. They can then choose from two tracks: a general one and one with a focus on the Food & Agribusiness. The core modules that TIAS offers in Tilburg are intended for both tracks. An integration module, with a specific focus on the specific context of the Food & Agribusiness, completes every block. There are three integration modules in all. Wageningen Academy, responsible for executive education (the business school of WUR), organizes the three modules within the Food & Agribusiness track. In this context, it uses the knowledge from inside and outside Wageningen University & Research.

The integration modules are concluded with a final assignment, a so-called Capstone Project. This gives the participants the opportunity to prove that they are ready for the future challenges of the Food & Agribusiness sector. The first participants in the Food & Agribusiness MBA will start in September 2017.