ESADE Teaching Excellence & Educational Innovation Awards 15-16

The Teaching Excellence & Educational Innovation Awards 2015-2016, which recognise teaching quality and educational innovation within the ESADE community, were presented recently at a ceremony held on ESADE's Sant Cugat Campus. The Teaching Excellence Award is given for teaching excellence as well as for dedication to faculty, while the Educational Innovation Award rewards the best practice in educational creativity and innovation.

The winners

Pedro Aznar, lecturer in the Department of Economics, Finance and Accounting at ESADE Business School, won the Teaching Excellence Award after receiving an exceptional evaluation from both the department and the programme, thanks to his passion for teaching, his dedication and the unquestionable contribution he has made, as well as exceptional student feedback.

With an interdisciplinary background and an approach that is both rigorous and dynamic, Pedro Aznar gives economics classes in Spanish and English to students at both the Business and the Law School, where he has stood out on account of his great capacity to connect with students and help them in their learning process.

Marcel Planellas, professor in the Department of Strategy and General Management, and Iván Bofarull, Director of Global and Strategic Initiatives, received the Educational Innovation Award for their role in developing and implementing the Creativity for Business Innovation Challenge (C4Bi), a competition designed to bring Ferran Adrià’s creative process auditing technique to businesses and other organisations. This year, the C4Bi has been open to ESADE students in several programmes: the Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA), the Masters of Science (MSc) and the MBA. The competition has also been internationalised and included students from Copenhagen Business School and Finland’s Aalto University.

In this new edition of the C4Bi, five-person teams were be asked to apply the famous chef’s creative process auditing technique at Hospital Sant Joan de Déu Barcelona.

The C4Bi attracted a large number of participants. At ESADE, 49 teams signed up, comprising a total of 196 students from 36 countries.

The awards

Any faculty member who meets the pre-established criteria can apply to be put on a shortlist of candidates for the Teaching Excellence Award. Subsequently, department and programme directors select three nominees each to go through to the next stage. This year, the finalists for the Teaching Excellence Award were Constance Lutolf-Carroll from the Business School and Jorge Castiñeira from the Law School.

With respect to the Educational Innovation Award, any member of the ESADE community who has developed and implemented consistent innovation in the field of education during the previous academic year can be nominated to receive this honour. Candidates for this award can nominate themselves or be nominated by third parties, such as department or programme directors, faculty or staff.

The Awards Committee, which makes the final decision, interviews the candidates who reach the final stage and assesses them, applying objective criteria. In the 2015/2016 edition, there were a total of 83 candidates for the Teaching Excellence Award. Of these, 32 were selected by the department and programme directors following the initial screening process. 4 projects were presented for the Educational Innovation Award.

The Awards Committee was composed of representatives of different sections of the ESADE community: Josep Franch (representative of the Business School Programme Directors), Patricia Font (representative of the Law School Programme Directors), Michelle Quintano (representative of the Executive Education Programme Directors), Ricard Serlavós (representative of the Business School Faculty), Elia Marzal (representative of the Law School Faculty), Gloria Batllori (representative of Executive Education Faculty), Josep Bisbe (Faculty President) and Cristina Giménez (Faculty Vice-Dean).