The world is cross functional. In the pharmaceutical industry – and I am sure this applies to many other industries as well – different disciplines have to work together to create a product that prevents or cures a disease or improves quality of life. In our programs – mostly customized programs – we expect the faculty to work together the same way we expect our scientists to work across disciplinary boundaries. Scientific thinking must lead to application for it to have any value, in companies as well as in business schools.

Jürgen Brokatzky-Geiger,

Head of Human Resources and

Member of the Executive Committee, Novartis

For us, academic research in itself is not that important. Much more germane is what can be applied to real life situations. It is like the technology of a car: When you drive a car, you want the instruments to be correct and you want certain comfort features. You don't really care about the research that went into it. What you care about is the userfriendliness and relevance of the output.

Nick Shreiber