What Services Does EFMD Global Offer?
Updated
EFMD Global is a non-profit membership organisation for management education, and its services fall into four broad groups: accreditation systems, assessment and mentoring, professional development, and shared career services. It is relevant to you if you are a business school, a corporate learning function, or a teaching and learning professional looking for external quality benchmarks, peer review, or certification. The organisation reports 980 institutional members across 95 countries and 30,000 management development professionals, and it publishes a member list you can consult before deciding whether to join.
Accreditation systems
These are the services most people mean when they search for EFMD. Each one targets a different unit of assessment.
| Service | What it accredits or certifies |
|---|---|
| EQUIS (Institutional Accreditation System) | The business school as a whole |
| EFMD Accredited (Programme Accreditation System) | Individual business programmes |
| EOCCS (Online Course Certification System) | Online courses — described as the first international quality benchmark for online courses |
| CLIP (Corporate Learning Accreditation) | Corporate learning functions |
| LIFT (Impact Certification for Learning Functions) | The learning impact of a learning function |
| RDHY (Management Innovation Certification) | Organisational transformation |
The practical distinction: if you want to signal the quality of an entire institution, EQUIS is the relevant route. If you want to benchmark a single degree or a single online course, EFMD Accredited or EOCCS is the narrower fit. Corporate learning teams sit outside the school-facing systems and use CLIP or LIFT instead.
Assessment and mentoring
Two services are framed as assessment and improvement rather than accreditation:
- BSIS (Business School Impact System) — described as the first comprehensive impact assessment tool for business schools. Use it when you need to demonstrate and understand your school's impact rather than obtain a quality label.
- EDAF (EFMD GN Deans Across Frontiers) — an assessment and mentoring system for business schools, aimed at schools working through development with guidance from experienced deans.
These suit institutions that want a diagnostic or developmental relationship rather than a pass/fail accreditation outcome.
Professional development and events
EFMD runs an Executive Academy, described as a development experience for teaching and learning executives, alongside a broader programme of events and trainings. This is the individual-facing side of the organisation: relevant if you are a faculty member, programme director, or learning executive looking for peer learning rather than institutional certification.
Shared career services
Highered is listed as EFMD Global shared career services — a careers platform connected to the member network. It is relevant to schools and students who want access to employers within the EFMD community, rather than to institutions seeking accreditation.
How to decide which applies to you
- You are a business school seeking institutional recognition → EQUIS, with BSIS or EDAF if you want impact assessment or mentoring first.
- You want to benchmark a specific programme or online course → EFMD Accredited or EOCCS.
- You run a corporate learning function → CLIP for accreditation, LIFT for impact certification.
- You are an individual academic or learning executive → Executive Academy and the events and trainings programme.
- You want careers access for students or employers → Highered.
If you are still narrowing down options, the member list on the EFMD site is the most direct way to check whether schools or organisations like yours already participate. EFMD also offers newsletter subscription if you want to follow announcements without committing to a membership decision.