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On 4-5 October 2016, more than 110 participants from Cuba and Europe took part to the final conference of the EU-project FORGEC on the transformation of Higher Education in Cuba. The event was organised by the University of Havana and hosted in the prestigious Aula Magna.

Prof. Eric Cornuel, CEO and Director General of EFMD, Dr. Eugenia Bieto, Director General of ESADE, the European Commission Ambassador Herman Portocarero and the Cuban Vice-Minister of Higher Education Dr. Oberto Santin Cáceres comented the results of the project and its benefits for the actualisation of the Cuban economical and social model.

Since 2013, EFMD has collaborated with eight Cuban universities, the Cuban Ministry of Higher Education and nine European business schools, HEIs and accreditation agencies in the framework of the various FORGEC activities:

• More than 400 alumni of training activities organised for managers and professors from 1996 to 2005 were kept up-to-date with the latest developments in management subjects during short annual programmes;
• More than 300 Management Professors and local actors of economic development participated in eight editions of a management training cycle;
• More than 150 University Managers were trained during five seminars and workshops on project management, quality assurance and university leadership;
• 25 Senior University Managers participated in two study tours in Europe on HEI management;
• 8 Management professors were hosted by European universities for a two-months stay;
• 6 methodological centres were established in the six main Cuban universities to implement quality assurance and to develop Management courses;
• 4 international events were organised to stimulate networking, exchanges and cooperation between the Cuban universities and their counterparts.

While FORGEC has now ended up its activities, the partners decided to strengthen their collaboration through the Erasmus+ funded project FORINT, gathering seven Cuban entities, two Panamanian universities and six European HEIs and associations to develop internationalisation strategies and collaboration opportunities between Cuba, Panama and Europe. The partners will also take part in the programme Expert Exchange Cuba-Europe to be launched in 2017. This capacity building programme aims at consolidating the previous projects achievements and increasing cooperation with Cuba in the domain of higher education.

The new projects as well as the results of the project FORGEC will be presented during the session “Impact Through Capacity Building – FORGEC: Higher Education in Cuba” in the 2016 EFMD Global Network Americas Annual Conference on 2-4 November 2016 at IAE Business School, Buenos Aires, Argentina.

For more information on the EFMD activities in Cuba and Panama and for participating to joint activities or exchanges with these countries, please contact the EFMD International Projects team.

From 6 to 15 October 2015, 9 Cuban heads of cabinet, Quality Assurance specialists and University Senior Managers took part to the study tour organised in Barcelona, Lisbon, Madrid and Paris. Coming from the six partners universities, the participants had the opportunity to exchange with HEI representatives and HE Quality experts on university management in Europe.

The study tour started with workshops and visits at ESADE, Barcelona and Sant-Cugat with the European experts on mentoring them on governance and strategy, research and development and programmes and implementation of Quality Assurance systems. The mentors were experts in Quality Assurance and Accreditation coming from ESADE Business School in Madrid, Nova School of Business and Economics in Lisbon and HEC in Paris. At the end of the three-day programme in Barcelona, each expert accompanied three Cuban participants to their respective school where the participants could establish links with European counterparts from ANECA, IE Segovia, ESCP or IIEP-Unesco and discover more on the organisation of a European Higher Education institution.

This study tour takes part into the overall framework of the Quality Assurance process of the Cuban universities with the visit of the three designated experts from European HEI in Cuba at the beginning of 2016 to assess the progress of the Quality Assurance implementation.

Based on the Call for services published by EFMD, four candidates submitted their applications by the deadline of 18 May 2015.

The selected candidate is Dr Fiona Hunter.

Dr Fiona Hunter is a consultant, trainer and researcher in Higher Education. She is based in Italy and works with public, private and faith-based higher education institutions around the world to both plan for and execute change by helping them to think more strategically about their institution, either for organisational improvement in general or with a specific focus on internationalisation.

The study tour started with workshops and visits at ESADE, Barcelona and Sant-Cugat with the European experts on mentoring them on governance and strategy, research and development and programmes and implementation of Quality Assurance systems. The mentors were experts in Quality Assurance and Accreditation coming from ESADE Business School in Madrid, Nova School of Business and Economics in Lisbon and HEC in Paris. At the end of the three-day programme in Barcelona, each expert accompanied three Cuban participants to their respective school where the participants could establish links with European counterparts from ANECA, IE Segovia, ESCP or IIEP-Unesco and discover more on the organisation of a European Higher Education institution.

This study tour takes part into the overall framework of the Quality Assurance process of the Cuban universities with the visit of the three designated experts from European HEI in Cuba at the beginning of 2016 to assess the progress of the Quality Assurance implementation.

While her work as a consultant and trainer is about change with a practical approach, it is research-informed. She works at the Centre for Higher Education Internationalisation (CHEI) at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan where she teaches on PhD programme and carries out a number of different research projects. CHEI has just completed a study on Internationalisation of Higher Education for the European Parliament, which is to be published in the coming weeks.

She is also Co-Editor at the Journal of Studies for International Education (JSIE) and is a member of the newly-formed Knowledge Development Taskforce at the European Association for International Education (EAIE).

The evaluation will be carried out in September-October 2015.

On 17 December 2014 EFMD published via its website and on www.publicationsonline.be an open tender to award a contract Supply of equipment for Cuban universities divided into two lots – Computer and IT equipment and Multimedia and other equipment. The deadline to submit offers was Thursday 22 January 2015.

For Lot 1 only one offer was received. The tenderer was BDC International (Belgium).

For Lot 2 two offers were received. The tenderers were BDC International (Belgium) and Suministros Kelonik (Spain). The Evaluation Committee met on Wednesday 28 January 2015. The conclusions of the Evaluation Committee were the following:

Lot 1 – the price offer exceeded the financial resources available for this lot.

Lot 2 – the two financial offers showed substantial differences between unit prices for the individual items. The award of the contract would not be in compliance with sound financial management.

The Evaluation Committee recommended cancelling the tendering procedure in both lots and open negotiations with the participating tenderers. Both tenderers were informed about the decision by email on 5 February 2015. The cancellation notice was published on 6 February 2015.

The negotiations with both tenderers started immediately and the final recommendation of the Evaluation Committee was confirmed by EFMD on Friday 27 March 2015. Both contracts were awarded to BDC International.

The contracts with BDC International were signed on 21 April 2015.