University of Pécs Faculty of Business and Economics is one of the best business schools in Hungary. It is part of University of Pécs, a public research university which was founded in 1367. It is located in Pécs, a university town 200 km south from Budapest, the capital of Hungary. Our city lies in a junction of different cultures from ancient Roman times, thus visitors may find a UNESCO world heritage site together with Turkish mosques and footprints of Christianity. Pécs is a place where university students dominate the city centre, where culture, talent and multiculturalism can be touched everywhere, where the climate is mild, almost Mediterranean. However, the local economy needs development, especially regarding its attractiveness to multinational companies.
Our School was founded in 1970, almost fifty years ago, as the oldest school of business and economics in Hungary out of Budapest. It was established as a sister institution of the present Corvinus University of Budapest with the aim of focusing on applied research. Since its foundation, the School keeps its leading role both among Hungarian business schools and within the University. Keeping this position is a result of a continuous and perspective work.
We have always been one of the most innovative schools of the University, proven by our three-decade-long history in internationalisation. We have a still flourishing partnership with our first US partner since 1989, and we were the ones who introduced one of the first international programmes of the country entirely taught in English, in 1996. The School does not only use international benchmarks for planning its operation, but this first international programme of the School, the one in the focus of the present accreditation, is validated and regularly revalidated by Middlesex University, London (MDX) for more than twenty years. This early connection with international standards is an evidence for the School’s innovative way of thinking and its devotion towards stepping into the international arena of business teaching. The evolution of this internationalisation path helped us to learn and experience how to operate and continuously develop an academic programme by meeting the international standards, to be competitive to prospective students and to provide well-prepared and strong graduates for the world of practice. Thanks to the continuous efforts in the field of internationalisation, our School has recently stepped into the third phase, in which there are more international students in the international programmes than Hungarians, mainly from Eastern countries who are interested to gain a European degree.
The School is currently facing a generational shift where young faculty members keep the core institutional values, but at the same time drive the School to a new direction. They are building an inspiring global community of business professionals who can contribute to the local environment, economies and societies, based on the School’s overall belief in cooperation.