Academic Year 2014/2015
During the academic year 2014/2015 the University of Economics, Prague (VŠE) has launched a lot of new projects. The xPORT VŠE Business Accelerator was opened – a new center supporting business projects of students and graduates of VŠE. In November 2014, all faculties of VŠE began to organize a common project “Alumni Wednesdays” – regular lectures of interesting guests for graduates of VŠE. The interest of graduates exceeded expectations – the average attendance at a lecture were 130 graduates.
Picture 1a: The opening of xPORT VSĚ Business Accelerator
In academic year 2014/2015, there were 3 027 students at the Faculty of Finance and Accounting; 4 274 students at the Faculty of International Relations; 3 432 students at the Faculty of Business Administration; 2 925 at the Faculty of Informatics and Statistics; 2 272 students at the Faculty of Economics and 1 444 students at the Faculty of Management in the town of Jindřichův Hradec. Applicants are constantly interested in studying at VŠE. There were 11 641 applications to study at VŠE in bachelor programs, exceeding three times the programs´ capacity 3 472 students were enrolled in the first year of studies.
International Cooperation
In 2014/2015, VŠE cooperated with more than 220 partner universities worldwide. It offered to Czech and foreign students a broad spectrum of accredited bachelor´s and master´s study programs and specialized courses in foreign languages. The block seminars of foreign visiting professors were very popular among students. The number of incoming and outgoing students has been increasing steadily. In 2014/2015, there were 681 incoming students within the Exchange Program. Another 151 students came within the framework of summer schools organized by VŠE. Most incoming students were from partner universities in the USA, France and Germany.
According to the prestigious QS World Rankings, VŠE is among the 700 Best Universities in the World. And when the Financial Times published the results of an evaluation of European universities for 2013, VŠE ranked 77th in Europe. In addition, the university took part in the success of the CEMS MIM master’s program too. The program was ranked by Financial Times (FT) as the 5th best program worldwide in the category of “Masters in Management” in 2014.
Picture 1b: The 26th Annual EAIE Conference took place in Prague. VŠE organized the pre-EAIE VŠE partners event.
Scientific Research Activities and Cooperation with the Professional Sector
The university has been involved in research projects and the support of publication activities by its academics and students. Moreover, VŠE issues many scientific journals. Two of these journals – Politická Ekonomie and Prague Economics Papers – are well respected journals with a significant increase in impact factors. In 2014, VŠE organized 52 scientific conferences, of which 40 were international scientific conferences.
VŠE continued in successful cooperation with its corporate partners as well. Česká Spořitelna has been the university’s general partner for many years. The main corporate partners of the university are ČSOB, Deloitte, EY, Komerční banka, KPMG and PWC. In academic year 2014/2015, corporate partners were Česká pojišťovna, 3M, Czech Chamber of Commerce, Kooperativa, L´Oréal, Microsoft, MSD, Business Development Advisory, T-Mobile, Mondelēz International, Plzeňský Prazdroj, Škoda Auto and HILTI. In addition, the three lastly named companies are CEMS international partners and the last one is a key partner of the Honors Academia Program by the Faculty of Business Administration. Moreover, the companies have a chance of presenting themselves at a job fair called Šance, which is organized by VŠE’s Development and Counselling Centre. The experts from companies are also involved in teaching. In 2014, 543 professionals from corporate sphere taught at VŠE.
Picture 2: VŠE and Česká spořitelna signed an agreement on cooperation. Česká spořitelna has become the general partner of VŠE for the thirteenth time.
Sports Achievements by Students and Social Events
There are more than 60 student organizations at VŠE. The organizations bring together students with the same interest in one of the fields of economy or in cultural or sport activities. VŠE also organizes the “Rector´s Sports Day” in April. Students who are talented in sports represent VŠE at sport events as Hockey Battle or University Eights in Prague.
VŠE also supports benefit actions. For example in fall and spring semester student organization HR Klub VŠE organized an event “Donate blood at VŠE” in cooperation with the General University Hospital in Prague. In April, the charity activity “Food Collection” took place for the first time at VŠE. It was also organized by student organizations with the support of VŠE and in cooperation with Food bank Prague.
Among VŠE most successful social events, were VŠE’s Representative Ball taking place in December 2014 and Alumni Day with VŠE in May 2015.
Picture 3: Student organizations have organized a lot of lectures with interesting guests. Many times, the biggest auditorium “Vencovského aula” was filled by students.