Institution Name: The Cyprus International Institute of Management (CIIM)
Erasmus Charter: CY-ERA-2013-21 (CIIM) – 223503
The Institute
The Cyprus International Institute of Management is a business school that aims to serve as a centre of excellence in postgraduate management education, continuing executive education and research in local and regional issues of international concern that strengthen the knowledge-based society. It fosters a new generation of managers, entrepreneurs and business leaders, who become catalysts, motivators and accelerators of change and innovation in business and government, in Cyprus, the region and beyond.
CIIM currently offers Master level degree programmes and it is working towards the offering of undergraduate programmes as well.
Erasmus Policy and Mission
CIIM offers an ‘international’ education both in program content and instructors with distinguished visiting faculty from around the world. The Erasmus programme supports and strengthens this objective and adds another dimension to this mission with the partnerships with European institutions via the Erasmus programme. CIIM is committing to maintain the international elements in its programmes, carefully select its visiting faculty and maintain the founding principles of the organisation.
Erasmus and Mobility
CIIM believes in the invaluable benefits that can be gained from the Erasmus experience, will actively promote the programme and encourage students, faculty and staff to participate in Erasmus. CIIM also commits to actively search for more partner institutions and to form bilateral agreements in its efforts to create a wider selection of options when it comes to mobility. This is being set as a priority and is currently being pursued.
Students
The selection of students in Erasmus exchanges will be based on academic merit, their personal statement of intent that will be required in their application for the programme and their potential to benefit from the programme. The Erasmus Student Selection Committee might conduct a personal interview with candidates to assess the character and commitment of applicant – both for incoming and outgoing students. The student body of CIIM includes 22 different nationalities. All programmes at CIIM follow the ECTS model and Erasmus students at CIIM will be enrolled under ECTS.
CIIM supports modernisation in higher education by employing blended learning techniques and by offering an electronic portal and an electronic library to all students.
Faculty
CIIM will promote faculty mobility to its resident faculty. Special priority will be given to attract Erasmus incoming faculty, in order to complement the already strong international faculty profile of the institute. CIIM has visiting faculty from over 20 universities from around the world, who are recruited to teach at CIIM under a bilateral agreement between the faculty and CIIM.
Staff
Regarding non-academic staff, the institute commits in increasing its co-operation and collaboration with other institutions in order to promote the reciprocal dissemination of best practices in administrative functions in the field of education.
CIIM, being a business school, will primarily approach other business schools to become partners or other institutions with a similar profile. The curricula of the partner institutions should either be similar or complement the one of CIIM in order for the latter to extend its academic offering.
The Erasmus Office
The CIIM Erasmus Office is responsible for all the Erasmus related activities and has the support from other department of the institute at its disposal. The office will ensure – under the supervision of the coordinator and the Erasmus committee – the quality in the selection and preparation of students, faculty and staff for Erasmus exchange programmes.
Potential partners are selected after thorough evaluation based on the academic recognition, their educational quality and other criteria which indicate the potential for cooperation with active mobility.
Business Network and Internationalisation
CIIM maintains a strong network with businesses in Cyprus and abroad. The network was created by leveraging on the current students, alumni, visiting faculty who are also practitioners in their field and the network of companies that collaborate with CIIM under its Executive Education branch. These business connections offer students an immense networking opportunity that would help in future career and growth prospects.
Through the recent establishment of the Centre for Entrepreneurship CIIM has established close ties with other academic institutions and enterprises in Greece, Israel as well as with local businesses and authorities.
CIIM also participated in other international and European projects, for example ‘Sesame’.
Equality and Diversity
In accordance with Article 21 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, the Erasmus Office of CIIM ensures that all individuals or groups applying for mobility activities will be treated equally, irrespective of their characteristics and there is no discrimination “based on sex, race, colour, ethnic or social origin, genetic features, language, religion or belief, political or any other opinion, membership of a national minority, property, birth, disability, age or sexual orientation”.
Furthermore to ensure fair and equitable opportunities to all potential participants, CIIM provides supplementary support for mobility participants who belong in groups which are usually under-represented in mobility programmes (i.e students or staff with disabilities, students from lower socio-economic backgrounds or who face other socioeconomic difficulties. The supplementary support required for each applicant is evaluated on a per-case basis and might include the offering of top-up grants according to national / institutional requirements, appointing of special counsellors, the development of learning / teaching techniques within an environment adapted to students from disadvantaged groups or promoting blended mobility (short-term physical mobility combined with virtual mobility which can be supported through strategic partnerships).
CIIM also commits to actively promote study abroad to students from disadvantaged groups and ensure that their support needs can be met from by CIIM and the visiting institution and their privacy will be respected. Students applying to the exchange programme are encouraged to disclose the fact that they belong to a disadvantaged group if they wish, so that appropriate support can be provided at the host institution.
Dissemination of Information
All information about CIIM’s Erasmus Charter, activities and on-going news and updates will be published on the official website at www.ciim.ac.cy and through the Erasmus Office.
This policy statement has been approved by the Members of the Board of Governors of the Cyprus International Institute of Management, on the 15th of May, 2013.
