One school, two worlds: The overseas campus opportunity

When ESSEC Business School arrived in Singapore 20 years ago, it did so as part of the ‘global schoolhouse’ project – outlined in a 2002 report from Singapore’s Ministry of Trade and Industry – Dr Gupta explained. This was Singapore’s national initiative to invite leading foreign universities to establish an education hub in Singapore and attract students from across Asia.  

Reflecting on that decision, Dr Gupta emphasised that the school’s motivation was deeply connected to student development: ESSEC wanted to expose our students to a different part of the world and particularly Singapore as a hub of finance, trade and innovation. In the early years, the Singapore campus was designed primarily for mobility students — those who would study for a semester abroad. This model worked well, offering ESSEC students a taste of Asia’s fast-moving economies. But as demand and opportunity grew, the school decided to expand. “Then we opened our own programmes,” Gupta explained. These programmes remained “academically rooted in France” but were delivered in Singapore. Today, this has evolved into what she described as a genuine multi-campus ecosystem, marked by “a cross-flow of students across different campuses.”  

Moderator QS Senior Consultant Daniel Kahn asked how the overseas campus and the home campus worked together – was it two markets and one brand? Dr Gupta said that they operate as “one ESSEC” and that they “actually live and breathe that”. Maintaining this alignment, she says, requires effort “from a vision standpoint, mindset standpoint and process standpoint.” It means common standards, shared academic leadership and regular cross-campus coordination. She added: “It is definitely not ‘two disconnected homes. We have a pretty centralised way of operating when it comes to our programmes.”  

May Tan-Mullins echoed many of these themes in her experience at the University of Reading in Malaysia, particularly the delicate balance between global consistency and local adaptability. “For me, overall branding has to be one,” she said, “It has to be consistent branding of excellence, good delivery, wonderful student experience and high quality of teaching.” Yet she stressed that even with “one university brand, one process, one student experience,” institutions must adapt to local realities. Ultimately, she said, “it’s about catering to the needs, not just of the market demand but also the student learning experience.”

Talking about her experience with an overseas campus at a previous institution, Tan-Mullins spoke about the initial stages of an overseas campus using a mother/child analogy – with oversight from the home campus evolving over time into a more equal partnership as trust builds and the overseas campus matures in its operations and reputation.  

Professor Young Joon Park shared insights into the decision of Peking University HSBC Business School to open a UK campus – in Oxfordshire. He described this as a “rare” occasion to have an Asian university with a campus in Europe. Speaking about the advantages of having a UK operation, he said: “It has made it easier for us to discuss possible collaboration and gives us more incentive to go into European markets, instead of the US.”

Together, reflections from the panellists provided a snapshot of international campuses not as satellites, but as integral, evolving parts of global institutions, which helped to bridge regions, shape student experiences, and redefine what it means to operate as a global business school.