The fact that the Maastricht School of Management (MSM) will from now on belong to the School of Business and Economics (SBE), is “a true joining of forces in international academic and executive economic and management education in Maastricht,” says a news item that was published by UM on Monday, 23 May.
Nick Bos, Executive Board member, refers to the UM’s ‘benefit’ for Business and Economics. SBE is an international faculty, but, contrary to MSM, they do relatively little with the so-called emerging markets in Africa, Asia and South America. MSM, however, has been running consultancy projects there for years. And therefore has useful connections. “We are a global player,” says Meinhard Gans, Chief Executive Officer and dean of the institute, in an interview. When he speaks about the integration into the university (he mentions the word “synergy” several times), he talks about the “knowledge increase”, “expanding their network”, “a broader foundation” upon which MSM can develop.
At the same time, a merger was inevitable, says Gans. “It is government policy.” More than twenty years ago, the Ministry of Education expressed the wish that MSM and four other international institutes in the Netherlands should seek a university partner. Here in Limburg, the UM was an obvious choice. In all those years, seven attempts were made. The first six times ended in arguments over matters, but also over people: a lack of understanding, reproaches, egos, it was all part of it. The latest attempt has been successful, but even this last try was not a particularly quick process, knowing that MSM approached the UM already back in 2018 to resume talks about a takeover.
Gans: “It wasn’t about a joint vision or strategy. We all saw the potential, we agreed on the same issues, but along the way there were more and more things, call them details, that had to be taken care of.” According to the UM’s Executive Board, it was about things such as (on-going) contracts with external partners and queries of a fiscal nature, spokesperson Koen Augustijn reported. Gans refers to the ‘diploma track’ with the Ministry as an example. The diplomas that MSM awards to students abroad, used to only have international accreditation. Now, they also have Dutch accreditation. “That is important, this was a good outcome for us, but it took a considerable amount of time.”
MSM will be a separate ‘unit’ within SBE. Gans: “Our name remains, as it has a reputation”. The institute will have to sustain itself, “we must continue to generate income”, on top of the basic subsidy that they have been receiving from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (foreign aid) for years and amounts to about 15 per cent of the budget.
The almost eighty employees of MSM will all transfer to the university. Furthermore, the UM will not take over the Aparthotel. This will be sold under the responsibility of the MSM foundation. The foundation will continue to exist for a number of years, also because it will issue MSM diplomas to current students.