Newswise — Banco Santander, the world's 7th largest bank by profit, and Babson College, one of the world's leading colleges for the study of entrepreneurship, have partnered to support academic programs in South America in the areas of entrepreneurship and global management. This partnership is part of Santander's ongoing effort to support, through its Santander Universities Global Division, academic projects developed by more than 600 universities around the world.
The collaboration agreement will support efforts in several areas:
* training of faculty from South American universities at Babson College and abroad in the areas of entrepreneurship and global management
* support between fifteen and twenty students from South America to study entrepreneurship and global management at Babson
* support joint consulting experiences between the Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering and Babson College with Santander in an effort to create new services in the U.S. for the Santander Bank Smart Card
* support four internships per year for Babson students with Santander, either in the U.S., Spain, or South America
* support social entrepreneurship workshops by Babson in South America.
"Santander Universidades and Babson is a partnership made in heaven," said Babson Provost Patricia Greene. "First, it is exciting to see what is growing from the vision of President Emilio Botin, to not only grow one of the largest banks in the world, but to dedicate an explicit share of the proceeds to higher education. This approach in itself is something I would like all our Babson students to learn about. We also share a commitment to entrepreneurship education and to Latin America. Our mutual goal is to improve the quality of the curriculum, pedagogy, and research activities while working with both faculty and students."
The partnership with Santander will be managed at Babson by the William F. Glavin Center for Global Management. The Center, directed by Adjunct Professor Walter Esquivel, leads the College's international initiatives and contributions to the advancement of its global management education. The three regional Institutes at the Glavin Center -- Asia Institute at Babson, Europe Institute, and the Institute for Latin American Business -- build and maintain partnerships with other leading institutions around the world to enable an exchange of knowledge and experience. Working with partners, they forge connections, create content, and share Babson's expert capabilities. Among Babson's university partners in other regions are Saint Petersburg/Russia and Tsinghua/China, which both have relationships with Santander Bank.
Santander Universities Global Division
Banco Santander's commitment to progress finds its expression in the Santander Universities Global Division, whose activities form the backbone of the bank's social action and enable it to maintain a stable alliance with the academic world in Spain, Portugal, Latin America, Russia, United Kingdom and, from now on, the U.S.
Santander Universities Global Division has signed co-operation agreements with more than 600 universities. Between 1996 and 2006, Banco Santander channeled 400 million euros into sponsorship of academic, research and technological projects in support of higher education.
Santander gives more support to the university community than any other bank in the world, with initiatives such as:
* granting over 10,000 scholarships each year to promote study, research and initial professional work experience
* aid to 2,000 research groups and direct financing of 40 scientific research and humanities projects
* 16 science and technology parks in different countries
* 17 corporate incubation projects in five different countries
* Santander has issued 2.8 million university smart cards in 173 universities, with a high level of functional and financial features for teachers and students
* supporting Miguel de Cervantes Virtual Library (http://www.cervantesvirtual.com), the largest of its kind for Hispanic works. Its website in Spanish is the most visited in the world (almost 500 million pages since 1999)
* supporting Universia (http://www.universia.net), the biggest university co-operation network in existence, which now includes 1,056 universities.
Santander GroupBanco Santander (SAN.MC, STD.N) is the largest bank in the euro zone by market capitalization and seventh in the world by profit. Founded in 1857, Santander has EUR 885,603 million in assets and EUR 1,071,815 million in managed funds, 69 million customers, 11,092 branches and a presence in 40 countries. It is the largest financial group in Spain and Latin America, and is the sixth largest bank in the United Kingdom, through its Abbey subsidiary, and is the third largest banking group in Portugal. Through Santander Consumer Finance, it also operates a leading in 12 European countries (Germany, Italy and Spain, among others) and the United States. In the first half 2007, Santander registered €4,458 million in net attributable profits, an increase of 39% from the previous year.
In Latin America, Santander manages over US$200 billion in business volumes (loans, deposits, mutual funds, pension funds and managed funds) through 4,481 offices. In the first half 2007, Santander reported $1,807 million in net attributable income in Latin America, 28% higher than the prior year.
Babson CollegeBabson College in Wellesley, Mass., is recognized internationally as a leader in entrepreneurial management education. Babson grants BS degrees through its innovative undergraduate program, and grants MBA and custom MS and MBA degrees through the F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business at Babson College. Babson Executive Education offers executive development programs to experienced managers worldwide. For information, visit www.babson.edu.
Babson was the first academic institution in the world to offer a course in entrepreneurship. Since then, Babson has been internationally recognized as the leader in entrepreneurship education.
Entrepreneurship isn't just an academic discipline at Babson. It's a way of life. Babson's faculty and staff recognize the interdisciplinary value of entrepreneurship and weave it throughout the curricular and co-curricular programs. The skills learned through Babson's entrepreneurship programs are vital for the success of any business -- large or small, public or private, corporate or not-for-profit, local or global.
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