Founded in Nantes in 1900, Audencia – from the Latin audientia, meaning “listening”, and audacia, meaning “daring” – was first accredited by EQUIS in 1998 and is ranked amongst the top European business schools. Learn more about Audencia’s quality.
UN GLOBAL COMPACT & CSR EXPERTISE
In 2004, Audencia joined the UN initiative uniting companies, the business world and civil society around 10 universal principles for labour and environmental standards and human rights. We were the first business school in France to join the Global Compact.
Since then, we have been developing and disseminating our expertise in corporate social responsibility (CSR) and integrating it into our research, teaching and internal management.
EXPANSION
Bachelor to doctorate, Nantes to Paris to Beijing
In 2010, Audencia incorporated the strengths of SciencesCom (a media and communication school founded in 1984) and the École Atlantique de Commerce (for post-baccalaureate education, set up in 1981). Both are accredited programmes ranked amongst the best in their specialist area.
Audencia can therefore now offer management and communication programmes from bachelor’s to doctoral level. We have also developed executive courses, available in France as well as internationally, which provide educational solutions to meet the strategic challenges and operational objectives of businesses.
Audencia currently has four campuses in Nantes, a campus in Paris and a Cooperative Center for Studies in Beijing.
CONSULAR INSTITUTION OF HIGHER EDUCATION
In 2017, Audencia change status from an association to a consular institution of higher education. Audencia, which is backed by Nantes-St Nazaire Chamber of Commerce, thus expands its managerial and decision-making autonomy in order to better address the challenges of its development.
Audencia has been ranked first among business schools (Grande Ecole programmes), ahead of the 39 other member schools of the Conférence des Grandes Ecoles. Solely based on students' opinions, this ranking measures the quality of their student experience.
ChooseMyCompany today published the 1st edition of the HappyAtSchool® 2020 Ranking.
Audencia is the No. 1 business school with a score of 8.42 out of 10 and a recommendation rate of 90.3%. The Grande Ecole students have therefore elected Audencia the school offering the best student experience.
The score is based on 15 questions exclusively answered by students, and includes 3 criteria: the average based on these questions, the participation rate and the recommendation rate.








