First of all, we are aware that the University of California Berkeley is an extremely prestigious institution. Unfortunately, it is hard to find a counterpart in Europe with a similar public perception. However, Germany also has a number of highly prestigious institutions that have the competence to supply us with a state-of-the art teaching content. I refrain from naming the candidates but just looking at existing exchange partners of NHH shows the potential.

We considered two set-ups for a partnership. The first alternative is, or better “was”, an exchange program in which German and Norwegian students participate together. Unfortunately, it turned out that this option is not suitable for the Innovation School. There are a number of reasons for that. First, the academic calendars differ between Germany and Norway. That matters especially because we are inflexible with respect to the timing as the program is supposed to take place during the summer break. Second, the target number of students that we have in mind is too high. We aim to take in up to 40 students, at least in the long run, and combining that with 40 German students implies either that the group becomes too big, or that we have to offer parallel courses. Finally, we agreed with our potential partners that this is not a viable option.

The second alternative is a program for a fee. We are in talks with a number of institutions that will make us an offer. Luckily, it turned out that this alternative is also more flexible in the sense that decisions can be made on a shorter notice. That will give us the time to identify the right partners, and to design a program for our needs.