Knowledge Networks News International MBA set up under the framework of the MIT-Portugal Program International MBA set up under the framework of the MIT-Portugal Program
- 21/02/2008
On 21 February 2008, the Faculty of Economics and Business Sciences of the Catholic University of Portugal and the Faculty of Economics of the New University of Lisbon and the Sloan School of Management of MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) signed an agreement to set up an international MBA Programme, to be known as The Lisbon MBA.
This agreement was signed within the framework of the MIT-Portugal Programme as specified in the activity of the Knowledge Networks. The ceremony to mark the signing of the agreement included short presentations by the Minister for Science, Technology and Higher Education, Professor José Mariano Gago, the Secretary of State for Science, Technology and Higher Education, Professor Manuel Heitor, and the Assistant Dean of the Sloan School of Management of MIT, Professor S.P. Kothari, the Vice-Chancellor the New University of Lisbon, Professor António Rendas, and the Vice-Chancellor of the Portuguese Catholic University, Professor Manuel Braga da Cruz.
The Programme will be taught in Lisbon with the active participation of the MIT Sloan School of Management, which students will be able to attend during their studies. The students will be selected from an international pool of candidates, and it is planned that the programme will start in January 2009 with 40 students, and it will train around 330 Managers in the next five years. The Programme will also reinforce university research in the area of Management in Portugal, and is designed to deepen relationships between the economic sector, companies in particular, and the university network.
An initial group of companies have agreed to support the programme and have signed institutional partnership agreements with Science and Technology Foundation (FCT), namely the Portuguese Investment Bank (Banco Português de Investimento), the Espírito Santo Bank, the Caixa Geral de Depósitos Bank, EDP – Energias de Portugal, the Vodaphone Foundation (Fundação Vodafone Portugal), José Mello SGPS and the National Electricity Network (Rede Eléctrica nacional), as well as other companies and public and private entities which have shown interest in being linked to specific parts of the Program.
The total private finance initially envisaged to ensure The Lisbon MBA in the first five years is 9 million Euros, to which will be added an additional amount of public funds up to a maximum of 4.5 million Euros, which will be administered by FCT.