Grenoble Ecole de Management (GEM), a mission-driven company, radically breaks away from the stereotypes inherent in major business schools and demonstrates its commitment to diversity and inclusion. Here's how.
Breaking Stereotypes
Despite the persistent prejudices against business schools, GEM dismantles the stereotype that business school students only come from socially and culturally privileged backgrounds.
In March 2021, GEM became the first French Business School to commit as a mission-driven company, a framework created by the PACTE law (Action Plan for Business Growth and Transformation), enacted on May 22, 2019.
With its mission-driven status, GEM has initiated major societal and environmental orientations within the school, forming the foundation of its 2020-2025 strategic plan. These orientations all align with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set by the UN. Among them, GEM has committed to promoting access to quality education by working towards inclusion and equal opportunity (SDG 4). Similarly, GEM has invested in gender equality, integrating the gender equality initiative (SDG 5).
A Diversity of Recruitment
Diversity and inclusion are two pillars of GEM's social and societal commitment. GEM now recruits various public and student profiles from the extended territories of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region and beyond, meeting the educational needs of candidates typically distant from higher education, geographically, but also culturally and socially. "By choosing to establish a campus in Pantin, Seine-Saint-Denis, GEM Paris has chosen to invest in a territory where higher education has a strong role to play for young people. Being a nearby business school can inspire new career ideas and ambitions!" emphasizes Alice Bodin, GEM's Diversity and Inclusion Officer.
GEM has also opened up to different recruitment methods. Since 2015, GEM has welcomed 30 students from the Institut de l'Engagement, which values civic pathways and youth involvement in citizen missions, free of charge. GEM also recruits through the post-baccalaureate diversity competition "Social Ascent and Disability" (421 students since 2015), with the pilot establishment of a specific internal recruitment pathway.
Additionally, since 2016, 33 students have joined GEM with full tuition fee exemptions under the "GEM Refugee Grant Program," conducted in partnership with the Grenoble metropolis, which is highly committed to welcoming exiled populations. Noteworthy is the second cohort of "Entreprendre dans la Ville," a program operated by the Chair led by Severine Le Loarne "Women and Economic Renewal" with Sport dans la Ville, which includes 38 entrepreneurs in 2023. This initiative promotes equality and inclusion of residents from the city's political districts (QPV) in the entrepreneurial world. And since 2023, GEM students can access apprenticeships without restriction from the first year of the Master's program.
Supporting All Talented Individuals
This policy of opening up to diversity and inclusion, massively implemented over the past three years, helps make GEM a major business school composed of diverse talents who will, in turn, promote new models and social representations.
Practically, GEM's student services, working closely with Delphine Vidal, General Delegate of the GEM Foundation, strive to inform, enlighten, integrate, and support students from diverse socio-economic and cultural backgrounds and/or those with disabilities. "Our mission, along with Alice Bodin, is to support the most disadvantaged students so as not to miss out on a talented and deserving profile," summarizes Virginie Semavoine, Diversity and Funding Assistance Officer at GEM. This mission includes individual support, which incorporates academic adjustments, access to GEM's resources and networks, and collective awareness of disabilities and diversity (cultural, gender, etc.). Finally, significant work is carried out by Alice Bodin, particularly with GEM's partner companies, such as Banque Populaire Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, BPI France, CGI, Sanofi, Schneider Electric, and Wavestone, enabling students with disabilities to integrate into a virtuous training environment and then into sustainable employment.
Today, GEM's curriculum includes programs, certificates, and awareness initiatives such as the Diversity Fresco, promoting maturity and openness to diversity and inclusion. "This training ground for socially committed managers is now clearly identified by companies," notes Virginie Semavoine. That is why donations made by corporate sponsors and individuals remain the keystone to definitively breaking the argument of social inequality reproduction associated with major business schools."
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In 2023/2024, 223 students gained access to GEM with tuition fee reductions based on social criteria – 181 of them in the first year of the Grande Ecole Program. Five students who passed the "Diversity-Social Ascent" competition joined the school in September 2023, receiving a 30% reduction in tuition fees in the first year. Additionally, the GEM Foundation offers social criteria-based scholarships: emergency aid or excellence scholarships, providing additional financial support of up to 2500 euros per student, depending on the situation and criteria studied by the scholarship commission. In 2023-2024, the GEM Foundation awarded 23 scholarships to the most deserving students.
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