EFMD Programme Accreditation

EFMD membership is a prerequisite. The institution must have operated at least five years. After an enquiry and draft datasheet, an online briefing visit tests eligibility unless the school already holds EQUIS or another EFMD-accredited programme. A four-person international peer team, including one corporate reviewer, visits against an input-output model: design, delivery, outcomes, plus three transversals — internationalisation, corporate perspective, and ethics, responsibility, and sustainability. EFMD puts a first accreditation at about two years; re-accreditation is shorter.

The label is programme-specific: “EFMD Accredited — MBA” or “EFMD Accredited — BA,” not a school-wide stamp. A programme set (related programmes with a common structure) can be reviewed together. Face-to-face, blended, and online provisions are in scope if they meet the same standards.

Example: a specialised MSc in data science with four business modules in a twelve-module degree is 33 percent business content. It fails Item 3 of the eligibility guidelines. Rebuild the core or pick a different quality mark. An MBA with two graduating classes totaling 28 alumni also fails, even if the curriculum is pure management.

EQUIS reviews the institution. EFMD Programme Accreditation reviews the programme and can serve as a stepping stone toward EQUIS, or as a way for an EQUIS school to differentiate one degree. AMBA accredits MBA, DBA, and related programmes against AMBA’s own criteria. AACSB is a school or unit review in the U.S.-origin system. Do not stack logos as if they were interchangeable.

Question	EFMD Accredited	EQUIS
What is accredited?	Named programme or programme set	The school
Institution age	≥5 years	≥10 years
Graduate evidence	2 cohorts; ≥30 graduates in prior 2 years	School-level portfolio, not a 30-graduate rule
Faculty floor	Programme resourcing, not EQUIS’s 25 FTE core	≥25 FTE core faculty

It is the successor. EFMD formally rebranded EPAS as EFMD Programme Accreditation in 2019. Older lists and partner agreements still say EPAS. For current applications, use the EFMD Accredited documents and the current eligibility guidelines, not archived EPAS manuals.

No. EFMD accredits from bachelor’s level through doctoral studies, including specialised master’s and programme sets. The programme must be at bachelor equivalent or above, with length appropriate to the level (EFMD cites a three-year full-time bachelor and a one-year full-time master as minimums). A short executive certificate is the wrong product.

No. It is programme quality assurance, not institutional accreditation. EFMD itself describes it as complementary and, for some schools, a first step toward EQUIS. A school that needs a whole-institution international brand still has to meet EQUIS eligibility, including the ten-year and 25 FTE tests.