• Application deadline

    31 January

    Application for the September 2024 intake opened 1 October. This programme has a set deadline and a selective admissions process. The programme has a maximum capacity of 75 students.

  • Starting date

    August 2024

  • Format

    Full-time | 18 months

  • Credits

    90

  • Fee

    €3,795 (EEA) | €32,250 (non-EEA)

    Find more information below

  • Language

    English

Are you keen to become a responsible business leader in a more open, sustainable and inclusive world? Prepare for your international management career in this top-ranked, highly inspiring environment. You’ll grow a strong academic foundation with a focus on practical applicability through skills seminars, an international internship, and a consultancy-like international business project.

  • 63 average number of students in cohort
  • 57% international students in programme
  • 86% of graduates employed within 3 months after graduation*
  • Examples of industries where graduates work: Consulting, Retail, FMCG
  • Examples of graduates’ job titles: Management Consultant, Brand Manager, Project Manager

*Excluding graduates who pursued an internship, further education or took a year off after graduation.

What you will learn

From day 1 of the 18-month programme, you’ll be part of the global CEMS network. This means you can connect with inspiring classmates in your close-knit cohort and with many companies through social and career activities throughout the programme. No matter what area you’re interested in – strategy, consulting, entrepreneurship, or technology – there are always CEMS graduates who can boost your learning experience and remain very involved with the programme for current students. There’s also a lot of engaging and insightful debates in class because your classmates represent so many nationalities and cultures.

A diverse set of knowledge

Through core courses and exciting electives as part of the curriculum, for example finance, consumer behaviour, sustainability leadership, corporate communication, and people management.

Innovation Strategy

In the course Innovation Management, you’ll explore how to successfully analyse and implement an innovation strategy, and how to manage the innovation process.

Climate Change Strategy

And the Climate Change Strategy Roleplay course gives you critical insight into the key elements of climate change, climate policy, and their effects on the future of business and the planet.

To be part of the CEMS network

No matter what area you’re interested in, there are always CEMS graduates who can boost your learning experience and remain very involved with the programme for current students.

CEMS students in classroom setting

Programme highlights

  • Experience the “CEMS spirit”

    An active CEMS Club creating a close-knit, personal quality to the programme as you study and work with people who want to improve themselves and society at large.

  • Varied educational experience

    Including in-company projects, career events and panels, an exchange semester and an international internship.

  • Access to the CEMS network of prestigious business schools, corporate partners and alumni

    This gives you access to companies and inspire you to discover which career path suits you best.

  • Dual qualification

    MSc International Management from RSM, and the CEMS Master in Management certificate via the CEMS Alliance

  • Take electives from other RSM master programmes or while on exchange

    to expand your perspectives, and network in specific business areas.

  • Study in small interactive classes

    that encourage teamwork with other motivated, ambitious, internationally oriented future managers.

More about the programme

Curriculum

Dr Meir Shemla on teaching the CEMS / International Management master

A teacher's story

  • Fall MSc IM and CEMS course requirement in strategy for 7.5 EC (either at RSM or on CEMS exchange)
  • Spring MSc IM and CEMS course requirement in global leadership for 7.5 EC (either at RSM or on CEMS exchange)
  • For RSM students spending the Fall semester at RSM, two of the four following courses must be taken:
  1. BM-IM03CC Global Supply Chain Management 7.5 EC
  2. BM-IM06CC International Entrepreneurship 7.5 EC (this course may be taken for this requirement ONLY if it hasn't already been taken for the Fall strategy requirement)
  3. BM-IM09CC Innovation Management 7.5 EC
  4. BM-IM12CC Management Control 7.5 EC
  • For RSM students spending the Spring semester at RSM, two of the four following courses must be taken:
  1. BM-IM04CC Using Business Analytics and Machine Learning for New Products 7.5EC
  2. BM-IM11CC Corporate Venturing 7.5 EC
  3. BM-IM13CC International Corporate Finance 7.5 EC
  4. BM-IM14FE Climate Change Strategy Roleplay 7.5 EC
  • CEMS course requirement in hard skills for 5 EC (either at RSM or on CEMS exchange)

  View all core courses below:

Read below what the Autumn semester at the IM / CEMS master's looks like.

The block seminar is a one-week course within the CEMS programme that takes place at the beginning of Term 1 at all CEMS schools. Block Seminars bring together professors and students from various CEMS institutions. Subjects derive from different cultural and academic perspectives; many topics are not a part of the universities’ standard curricula. 

The Block Seminar is a mandatory element of the programme and accounts for 3 EC and students receive a letter grade for the Block Seminar in their CEMS curricular progress. For the MSc International Management curriculum, it is evaluated based on pass/fail. 

RSM offers two parallel Block Seminars in cooperation with CEMS social partner & RSM corporate partner, the European Space Agency. The first block seminar, The Entrepreneurial Challenge: Turning Technology into Business (TTB) focuses on developing a (non-space) business application of a European Space Agency (ESA) technology. It learns the students about entrepreneurship and developing new, viable businesses. The second block seminar is about strategy consulting and to support entrepreneurs with the development of their new business. 

Students are assigned to teams of 4-6 persons and as a team they work on a group assignment. 

For the module TTB, the assignment is to develop a viable business concept using space technology. The business concept needs to be presented at the end of the working week. For the module NVC, the assignment is to provide entrepreneurs with actionable recommendations how to improve their new business. These recommendations also need to be presented at the end of the week. 

The group project is a joint effort. This means that all team members should contribute equally and fully participate throughout the week. Lecturers, facilitators and experts will support and coach the students in their assignments during the week. The quality of the final work will be graded by the course lecturers in collaboration with an independent jury.  

Further details on the course organization and assignment will be provided on Canvas and during the first meeting. 

Taught by Dr G. Cross (TTB), Dr G. Criaco (NVC), N. Eldering (ESA), guest lecturers

This course will leverage academic articles, practical applications of theory, and cases to develop the students’ ability to analyze international strategy issues. Students will have the opportunity to demonstrate their understanding of core concepts through weekly quizzes and class discussion. They will end the course with a group project.  

We will focus on three core theories of international strategy: Industry-, Resource-, and Institution-based views. Individually, these theories provided the building blocks for international strategy. Porter (1980) introduced what we now call the industry-based view to help managers better understand competitive dynamics in industries. In the mid 80’s and early 90’s, the revival of resource-based approaches elaborating Penrose (1952) helped to explain how firms may develop capabilities and combine and leverage resources to gain sustained competitive advantages (Barney, 1991; Dierickx & Cool, 1989). And more recently, a group of scholars has been promoting the inclusion of an institution-based view to help explain the rules of game that may shape business and firm outcomes. Together, these theories create the basis for a strategy tripod. 

The strategy tripod helps managers to better understand four key questions (Peng et al., 2009): Why do firms differ? How do firms behave? What determines the scope of the firm? What determines the success and failure of firms around the globe? Each of these questions relates to firm performance, the fundamental focus of strategy practitioners and researchers and the core of our course. 

Review the course guide for more details.

Taught by Dr B. Pinkham.

Supply chain management (SCM) has emerged as one of the major areas for companies to gain a competitive edge. Managing supply chains is a complex and challenging task, due to current business trends of expanding product variety, short product life cycles, increasing outsourcing, globalization of business, and continuous advances in information technology. Supply chain management, as a natural successor to operations management, is a fundamental driver not only for further improving operations but also for strengthening the competitive position of firms. When a company faces the pressure of excessive inventories, degraded customer service, escalating costs and declining profits, or a poor return on assets, its supply chain is out of control. On the other hand, when a company moves into new markets or new technologies, it must have its supply chain prepared for new business challenges and opportunities. The course will introduce students to concepts and techniques related to the design, management and improvement of supply chains and supply chain operations.

The course focuses on a variet of challenging supply chain business situations.  For example, how different types of supply contracts can be used to design win-win solutions between buyer and supplier, how the benefits of information sharing can be estimated in the context of supply chain, and what supply chain strategies match with proliferating product variety. Other topics include, but are not limited to, inventory management, supply chain transportation and distribution network design, operational hedging and global supply chain risk management.

Review the course guide for more details.

Taught by Dr M. Pourakbar.

One manifestation of our globalizing world is the emergence of innovative start-ups that have a worldwide focus and sometimes resource base from inception. The international activities of these firms that have decided to go abroad almost directly after their creation, have received an increasing amount of attention over the past years; they are called born globals or international new ventures. In addition to small and medium-sized firms with incremental growth strategies, the focus in this course is on these dynamic start-up firms that make products and sell services that are ‘new to the world’, strive for scaling up their activities and seek international presence. These growth-oriented start-ups with global expansion strategies face a lot of uncertainty compared to established multinational companies with more traditional products and services: their novel products or services are unknown to the market, so is the effect of the product for the customer. Also, in bringing these niche products and services to the international market, young firms have limited resources and few complementary assets (they do not have deep pockets and needed additional start-up and growth financing).

In this course we will look how innovative start-ups and ambitious small firms mitigate the risks of starting-up, early growth and internationalization, and more specifically how they address and manage their country selection and market investigation choice(s), their entry mode strategies and international operations and capabilities. Other interesting characteristics of these international new ventures are the importance of the founders and the entrepreneurial team, their particular motives for international expansion, and the relevance of strategic partners and investors.

Increasingly entrepreneurship is seen as a promising approach aiming to solve complex social, environmental, and economic problems with innovative solutions. Here we deal with the overlaps between collaborative entrepreneurship, sustainable development and social venturing. This entrepreneurial collaboration may manifest itself through cross-actor participation within entrepreneurial processes, addressing sustainability issues by developing entrepreneurial solutions, and society-wide cooperation between different forms of entrepreneurship such as social entrepreneurship, sustainable entrepreneurship, and institutional entrepreneurship. Compared with commercial and independent entrepreneurship, social and collaborative entrepreneurship is characterized by the process of pursuing opportunities in pursuit of high social returns (cf. market leadership, or profit maximization). Instead of establishing a new venture to seize and commercialize opportunities, the social entrepreneur recognizes a social problem and uses entrepreneurial principles to organize, create, and manage a venture to make social change possible or realize a societal goal (e.g. the slow take-off of recycle stores in the Netherlands).

This Master course is for students who plan to become involved in new ventures and fast-growing and internationalizing firms, or high-impact social ventures in the near future (i.e. immediately after graduating) or at mid-career. Another reason to take this course is that some simply want to more as a future consultant to young companies or entrepreneurship support manager about the key entrepreneurial and managerial processes found in start-ups and fast-growing companies.

Review the course guide for more details.

Taught by Dr W. Hulsink.

Whether an organization innovates determines whether it survives. Take the iPhone for example, which disrupted the cell phone market and within a few years became the most successful smartphone company (Nokia sold its cell phone division to Microsoft in 2014 due to huge losses).

In this course you learn why companies struggle to innovate, how to successfully analyze and implement an innovation strategy, and you learn to manage the innovation process.

The course consists of two pillars (or ‘walls’) that enable a company to become innovative (Innovation Strategy and Organization Design) and the innovation process itself (see figure below). The innovation process contains how to generate, select, implement, protect, experiment, scale, and diffuse ideas. Consequently, this course will provide you the skills and knowledge to manage innovations.

Review the course guide for more details.

This course is taught by Dr H. Klapper​​​​​​​​​​​​​​. 

Management Control Systems (MCS) form the bridge between the organization’s strategy and its operations/services. Their purpose is to align managerial behaviour and decision making with organizational strategic goals. Although financial management tools are typically crucial  in an organization’s MCS, the design and use of a MCS does not only require an understanding of accounting techniques. It should also be based on a thorough understanding of how managerial behaviour is influenced by relevant control system elements, such as target setting, performance measurement and monetary incentives. Indeed, as the proper design of MCS is paramount for organizational performance, organizational failure can often be attributed to a poor design or implementation of the organization’s management control system. Past scandals such as the collapse of Enron and the recent crisis in the financial sector can be directly traced back to failures in MCS design. The emphasis of the course is on the analysis and understanding of the drivers of managerial (rational and irrational) decision making in complex organizations rather than on the application of accounting tools often associated with financial management.
 
The course strongly focuses on the managerial issues faced by CFOs of multinational companies. Meetings are case-based: students discuss (financial) management control topics in close relation to case studies of multinational companies. The assignments/tests will allow students to show their theoretical knowledge, but also their understanding of how to apply it to real-life case situations.

Review the course guide for more details.

This course is taught by Prof. Dr M. van Rinsum​​​​​​​.

All electives enable you to broaden your knowledge of a chosen field before starting work on your Master Thesis. 

CEMS electives cover a broad range of subjects, from strategic management to current issues in sustainability. Through your selection of electives, you gain either in-depth knowledge of a certain field, or a broader view across the entire international business landscape, depending on your preference for your future career: to apply for a specialist entry-level job, or to gain a broad foundation for a wide range of careers in management.

CEMS students may choose free electives from among the CEMS-accredited courses indicated here at the EUR online course guide.

Read below what the Spring semester at the IM / CEMS master's looks like.

The contact between individuals and organizations from different countries, cultures, and social groups has never been greater than in our time. In recent decades organizations have continuously globalized their operations, resulting in increasing frequency with which employees interact with colleagues and customers from different cultural backgrounds and ethnicities. At the same time, as a result of legal, social and economic shifts, workforce participation rates of women, minorities, and disabled people have dramatically grown, thus turning diversity into a strategic issue in organizations. Further, as executives operate around broader regions, global teams are formed to address the need to become globally competitive, and customers and suppliers operate across borders, the demands on global executives are ever growing. 

This course is designed to help participants develop a deeper understanding of the issues that confront global managers today, and to prepare them for leadership roles in international organizations. Through business cases, experiential exercises, and real-life examples, the course strives to explore knowledge in leading diverse people as well as in leading global organizations. Emphasis will be placed on gaining awareness for the role of culture in organizations and on developing skills to manage diversity.

Review the course guide for more details.

Taught by Dr M. Shemla​​​​​​​. 

Climate change is one of today’s most pressing issues, receiving international attention from political leaders, corporations, the media, advocacy groups, and the general public. In the future, it is likely to become even more pressing as the effects of climate change intensify resource competition, natural disasters, disease vectors, water and food scarcity, and refugee migration.

According to Sir Nicholas Stern, former chief economist of the World Bank, the impact of climate change is likely to change the international business environment dramatically. However, the business relevance of climate change is insufficiently understood by future decision makers in international management and society.

We believe that tomorrow’s business leaders should be educated on the key elements of climate change – the science, the evolving policy, and role of business. They can become an essential part of the solution, but only if equipped with a sound understanding of the challenges at hand and the processes by which new policies are constructed.

The Climate Change Strategy course and its Model United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) form an innovative educational approach to closing this knowledge gap. Our goal is to broaden students' understanding of climate change, climate policy, and their impacts on the future of business.

The course modules deal with the core issues of climate change and include a wide range of effective didactic tools and exercises. Students are given a deeper understanding of the background and consequences of climate change for business, and of corporate responses to it. Special emphasis is laid on international and national regulatory frameworks, and on emerging resource challenges and market opportunities. Furthermore, the course will provide students with an opportunity to develop a broad set of personal skills such as negotiation, forming strategy, research, public speaking and debating.

The 2022 edition of the course will be simultaneously offered at eight leading CEMS universities and culminates in a two-day UNFCCC simulation event at one of the business schools.

Students will be using the 2015 Paris Agreement created at COP21 and be simulating the upcoming COP27. Negotiations will seek to enhance the current Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) of countries and work out details of how the new mechanisms and funds will function. The big challenge is how to improve the current commitments to be in line with the universally agreed target of limiting global temperature rise to ‘well-below 2 degrees’. Students will negotiate on issues such as mitigation of greenhouse gases (new voluntary targets, financing and compliance), adaptation to climate change (financing, climate change refugees, technology transfer), and market mechanisms (sustainable development mechanism, REDD+, aviation and shipping).

Students should attend and actively participate in the classes. Students are expected to engage in class discussions, ask questions of speakers, and demonstrate involvement with group exercises.

Review the course guide for more details.

Taught by Dr S.P. Kennedy.

The course is focused on using statistics and machine learning tools to solve problems in the area of new product development (NPD). This involves offline problems (e.g., how to design a new product, how to measure value creation) as well as online problems (how machine learning can be deployed to, in real time, assess consumers styles, recommend online products, and communicate with them in a personalized – but computer-mediated - way).

New product development is a marketing topic, and the lecturer is a marketing professor who has done extensive research on the use of machine learning in marketing. His research on machine learning methods for digital marketing will be extensively discussed and the quantitative methods he has published (such as morphing, machine-learning based assessment of cognitive styles, and reinforcement learning) will be taught in class.

Why is this course focused on new product development? Well, product innovation is consistently found to be one of the most important drivers for a firm’s success. More recently, the Internet has enabled products that are recommended and adapted to each consumer, but that requires the firms to be able to use analytics and machine learning.

The purpose of this course is to provide students with a deep understanding on (1) the machine learning methods that are being used in the development and commercialization of new products, both digital and non-digital, and (2) the analytics and machine learning tools needed for customization and recommendation of digital products.

Review the course guide for more details.

This course is taught by Prof. Dr G. Liberali​​​​​​​​​​​​​​.

Over the past years, small firms and start-ups have started to play an increasingly important role in our economy. R&D spending by small firms has increased and many disruptive innovations have been conceived by new entrants to an industry, thereby posing a major threat to existing firms. In order to sustain their competitive advantage, it is important for large firms such as Shell, DSM, and KLM to tap into the knowledge of these start-ups and to invest in corporate venturing. Corporate venturing can be achieved in different ways, including: taking a minority position in outside businesses (corporate venture capital), building a new business as a stand-alone unit (spin-out), or building a new business inside the existing firm with a structure allowing for managerial autonomy and independence (corporate incubator or accelerator). This course will discuss strategies, organizational structures and implementation challenges of new ventures within an established corporation as well as options to leverage external partners outside the boundaries of the corporation within the process of new business development.

Review the course guide for more details.

This course is taught by Prof. Dr V.J.A. van de Vrande​​​​​​​.

This course teaches a general management perspective on financial decision making and provides participants with the skills and knowledge to increase the value of a corporation. The course should appeal to participants who want to work as finance executives within a corporation, consultants, investment bankers, private equity, or venture capital investors. The course is also suited for participants who simply want to extend their finance knowledge beyond the financial management courses.


The aim of this course is to teach participants the knowledge and skills that a manager needs for good investment, financing, and operating decisions. The first part reviews essential financial concepts. The second part teaches participants how to recognize and manage financial risks. The third part discusses international investment decisions.

Review the course guide for more details.

This course is taught by Dr C.H.O. Schmitt.

The International Business Project (or IBP) constitutes an important (and mandatory) part of the Spring semester within the CEMS programme at Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University (RSM). Over a period of approximately four months, you will work intensively on a consultancy project together with three/four other students, carried out for a company or institution. Both a university and a company coach supervise the project. The general aim of the project is to respond professionally and effectively to a real-world management problem and to learn from working together in multidisciplinary and culturally heterogeneous groups.

Most students will already be familiar with various business disciplines through course work; however, the interdisciplinary use of this knowledge and the capacity to translate it into practical solutions is often a new challenge. The business project permits students to combine theory and practice – they learn how to formulate a project proposal and relevant research questions, analyse problems, develop recommendations and propose solutions to the problem. In addition to providing hands-on experience on how to deal with a business problem, the course also offers a unique chance to learn about how teams function and to learn how to work effectively in teams. Therefore, the project incorporates leadership sessions that challenge students to deepen their understanding of the process of working in multidisciplinary and international teams.

All electives enable you to broaden your knowledge of a chosen field before starting work on your Master Thesis. 

CEMS electives cover a broad range of subjects, from strategic management to current issues in sustainability. Through your selection of electives, you may gain either in-depth knowledge of a certain field, or a broader view across the entire international business landscape, depending on your preference for your future career: to apply for a specialist entry-level job, or to gain a broad foundation for a wide range of careers in management.

CEMS students may choose free electives from among the CEMS-accredited courses indicated here at the EUR online course guide.

As future business leaders, you will face challenging marketing problems every day.  Who are your main competitors?  Which customers are the right target group for your product?  How can you respond to market trends and changing customer needs?  How do you engage consumers in your shop and online?  How can websites recommend news and videos to its visitors?  And how can you prevent customer churn?  The marketing strategies you will implement can make the difference between success and failure, certainly for your products and maybe even for the whole firm.

In tackling these challenges and building successful marketing strategies, many firms rely on big data and marketing analytics. In this age of data, being able to work with big data and sophisticated marketing analytics tools has become a vital part of the skill sets of successful marketing professionals.

The objective of this course is to show you the benefits of using a systematic and analytical approach to marketing decision-making and get you familiar with the insights and methods you can use to understand these marketing problems. The course discusses important marketing problems and covers a wide range of cutting-edge machine learning and data analytics techniques that should be part of the toolbox of modern data scientists.  You will learn how to pick the right solution for tackling analytics opportunities and challenges that exist in today’s big data era. The course uses an action-oriented, applied approach to managing marketing problems with data-driven tools.  Example applications allow you to experience the value of quantitative methods in marketing even if you have little (or no) coding background.  After completing this course, you will be able to solve marketing analytics problems in a scientific and process-driven manner.

Taught by Dr Gabel.

Read below what the thesis semester at the IM / CEMS master's looks like.

The Research Clinic constitutes the formal start of the MSc International Management thesis semester. Students must have completed the full first year of the MSc International Management/CEMS programme in order to advance to the research clinic and thesis semester. The seminar informs IM students about the following research issues: 

  • What makes good research compelling? 

  • How does one write an interesting and persuasive thesis? 

  • How does one formulate a challenging research question? 

  • What is an adequate research methodology to answer the central research question? 

The Research Clinic is structured around four plenary lectures that address the research issues stated above; in parallel, students work in small-scale highly interactive work groups applying these themes to their own research topic. Groups will typically consist of students sharing similar research topics. The output of this seminar is a research proposal for the Master thesis. 

All plenary sessions are interactive; students can expect to be asked questions, to make presentations, or to engage in discussion with other fellow students. The preceding implies that students are expected to come to class prepared, having carefully read all the compulsory literature and submitted the assignments. 

In addition to the plenary sessions, students have three work-group sessions with their supervisor. These sessions focus on the actual writing of the research proposal. Depending on the supervisor these sessions will be run in groups or individually. 

Taught by Dr R. Olie.

The Master thesis constitutes the heart of the third and final semester of MSc International Management/CEMS programme. The Master thesis requires that students complete independent, individual research on a topic of their choosing, in the academic field of International Management. In practice, this will generally cover the fields of Strategic Management, Organisational Behaviour, Human Resource Management, Marketing, Supply Chain Management and Finance. Other disciplines including Entrepreneurship and Global Business and Stakeholder Management may also be considered.

As many students may find it difficult to develop their own research ideas or narrow the scope, ideas for thesis themes will be provided by professors of various academic departments. However, students will have ample freedom to explore specific research topics within these themes. The professor(s) of the theme will act as thesis coach. An important requirement for the research topic is the relevance for an international manager. Furthermore, the topic should be both theoretically and practically relevant. Practical issues without a theoretical basis and relevance fall outside the scope of the Master thesis.

The IM thesis provides students with an opportunity to deepen their understanding of areas of interest, train their capacities of analysis and problem-solving, and improve their skills in practical scientific business and management research. The Master thesis is research-based and thus requires sufficient knowledge of methodology, the research process and effective methods of communicating research results. The Research Clinic at the start of the thesis semester provides a good basis for acquiring this knowledge. The research clinic introduces necessary elements for conducting academic and business research including problem formulation, data analysis, research design and writing a valuable report.

Review the course guide for more details.

Internships

You are required to do an internship abroad of at least 8 weeks. Most students join one of our CEMS corporate partners, although you are able to look independently for an organisation in which to pursue your internship. Because the internship is designed to be an intercultural experience, it must be taken in a country with which you are relatively unfamiliar. This is your chance to get a real taste of a future profession or organisation. Many students acquire their first job from the contacts they establish during this period.

Examples of Internships taken by IM /CEMS Students

  1. DaimlerChrysler AG, Germany 
    Optimising the testing strategy and product quality of several Mercedes-Benz series 
  2. UBS AG, Switzerland 
    Researching the energy derivative field in Europe 
  3. L’Oreal, UK 
    Marketing department 
  4. Volkswagen Group China, China 
    Production readiness department 
  5. Emerson Process Management, Singapore 
    Developing and executing a co-ordinates plan for the yearly sales meeting 
  6. Procter & Gamble, Belgium 
    Improving the Benelux intranet site concerning human resources 
  7. Frape Behr, Spain 
    Purchasing department 
  8. DZ Bank, Germany 
  9. Mergers and acquisitions, and initial public offerings

Exchanges

As a student of IM/CEMS, you are required to spend the autumn or spring semester at a CEMS partner university. Each school applies the same curriculum structure to their course design and a local CEMS Club provides an active social life for the international student body, helping to build the CEMS community spirit.

Find more information on the exchange under Admission & Application

Skills

Skill Seminars are training seminars in practical skills offered within the CEMS network. They are essential to kick-starting an effective professional career and fundamental to adjusting easily to an international management environment. Skills seminars may be offered by a CEMS school or by CEMS corporate partners and are often offered in small-group settings to ensure and interactive dimension. 

Topics may include: 

  • Personal/leadership development 

  • Intercultural (management) skills 

  • Project Management 

  • Group work skills 

  • (International) negotiation techniques 

  • Presentation skills 

  • CV building and job application preparation 

  • business communication 

In order to meet graduation requirements, CEMS students must accrue minimum six skills seminar days, of which: 

  1. 2 days must be in the form of the Global Citizenship seminar at the beginning of the spring semester 

  2. And four additional days of a student’s choice must be taken  

For IM/CEMS home students, one they have completed the above requirements and the Personal Leadership Development (PLD) module, they will be issued 4 EC toward the MSc International Management curriculum. 

Languages

On completion of the International Management/CEMS programme, you must have minimum proven proficiency in at least two languages in addition to English. You are expected to improve language skills of your own accord, and your standards in both foreign languages should improve during your studies at RSM. Erasmus University's Language and Training Centre organises special language courses and language level tests.

The aim of the course ‘Your Future Career’ is to prepare RSM students at an early stage in their master's for their careers.

The online modules will help you make crucial steps towards the most suitable career step, whether an internship or a job.

To pass the course, you need to gain a minimum number of points within a few months. You can decide if you want to reflect on your interests and motivations, develop knowledge of the job market, receive peer feedback on application materials, learn to love networking, or attend an interactive alumni career panel or workshop.

See this page for more details.

This course is overseen and guided by Dr Maciej Szymanowski and Lisanne Keir.

Note regarding taking courses if you are not an RSM master student: RSM does not offer the possibility for non-RSM students (master or otherwise) to take RSM MSc courses outside of official exchange partnerships or other inter-faculty agreements. If you are interested in learning more about corporate social responsibility, sustainability, or business ethics, please refer to our Open Programmes section.

For more information on all international opportunities offered at RSM, visit the website of our International Office.

Career opportunities

An alumna talks about the CEMS programme at RSM

An alumna talks about RSM’s MSc in IM CEMS

RSM’s MSc International Management/CEMS programme provides excellent preparation for your international management career. Evidence shows that graduates obtain good jobs.

CEMS graduates from all CEMS schools in 2017 showed that they find jobs quickly and the skills we teach at RSM – plus the international networking aspect of our programme – really work:

  • 69% are employed within three months of graduation or continuing their studies*
  • 75% work for a multinational company
  • 36% work outside their home country
  • 51% of CEMS graduates work for a CEMS Corporate Partner
  • 98% would recommend their CEMS experience to a friend

*Excluding graduates who pursued an internship, further education or took a year off after graduation.

You will graduate with the skills needed to adapt to changing environments; alumni have told us this helps them in earning promotions.

Our programme gives you the skills to be able to work in a wide variety of industry sectors. CEMS graduates work in:

  • Consulting 28%
  • Technology 18%
  • Consumer goods 13%
  • Finance 11%
  • Education 4%
  • Pharma/Healthcare 4%
  • Other 4%

Non-EEA nationals who have earned a diploma from a higher education institute in the Netherlands can apply for a special residence permit called the orientation year after completing their studies. The 'Orientation Year for Graduates Seeking Employment' is a residence permit aimed at retaining foreign talent for the Dutch labour market. During this orientation year you are free to work without a work permit. Participants who find a job during this period can change their orientation year into a residence permit for Highly Skilled Migrants under more favourable terms.

For the most up-to-date information please visit the following website.

View LinkedIn profiles of our graduates

You can read more about our graduates and their career progress from their public LinkedIn profiles.

Tip: you can see more of our graduates’ profile information if you are not signed in to your LinkedIn account. Sign out of LinkedIn, then click the links.

Good to know

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Alumni networks

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Studying at RSM

A student on the RSM MSc in IM CEMS

A student on the RSM MSc in IM CEMS

The RSM Experience

Education for life

Studying at RSM will be a life-changing experience. Your master degree will prepare you for a fulfilling professional life as a capable, self-assured individual. It will make you valuable to business and attractive to employers because it teaches you skills that make the most of your innovative mind. You will be challenged in and outside of the classroom, and you will gain an education based on the latest developments in business. Your master degree from RSM will include RSM’s promise of life-long learning, and membership of the more than 40,000-strong alumni network that is present in more than 110 countries which hosts activities and events all over the world.

Open intellectual culture

Your education at RSM is valuable. You will learn from academics who produce the highest quality research and the most innovative management thinking. In the classroom, sharing and questioning opinions is encouraged – yours and those of your fellow students, as well as the professors’. Many of RSM’s faculty members are young and passionate professors and researchers with outstanding academic credentials. Their work is published in top international management journals.

Engaging environment

Professors’ doors are always open for students who have questions, projects or ideas. Depending on the study programme, students have different opportunities to tailor their programme. This can, for example, take the form of a minors course, an internship, an exchange at one of over 160 partner schools worldwide, elective choices, the participation in a consulting project with a company or public sector organisation, or a thesis project in their specific area of interest. RSM’s strong links with local and international businesses and organisations offer opportunities for practical projects and real-life collaborations.

What is your ‘I WILL’?

RSM’s I WILL movement allows you to define your goals, your ambition, your drive. It’s our forward-thinking community that asks you to say something about your future. Your I WILL statement becomes part of the spirit of RSM’s diverse community of students, researchers, staff, professors, alumni and others related to the school. Making a public commitment to your goal will allow you to achieve it faster and better. What is your goal?

Rotterdam, a future-oriented city

Living and studying in Rotterdam has never been better. Rotterdam is home to one of the largest and busiest ports in the world and many multinational companies have their headquarters here. The city is famous for its stunning modern architecture, such as the Centraal Station or its covered food market, the Markthal. At the same time, the city authorities are forward-thinking in improving its liveability. There’s no shortage of restaurants, museums and theatres, yet Rotterdam is still an extremely student-friendly city with plenty of affordable student housing, and a bustling nightlife that includes events organised by students associations.

Find out more about life in the city of Rotterdam.

RSM Master Students

Talk to a student ambassador!

Learn more about student life

More information

CEMS Club Rotterdam

Explore the campus

Life in the city

Coming from abroad

Fees & scholarships

The expected tuition fee for the 18-month MSc International Management - CEMS programme is approximately €32,250 for non-EEA students, and approximately €3,795 for EEA students in 2024-2025.

Please note that all these tuition fee tariffs are subject to change.

Scholarships

The number of scholarships is limited and mainly merit based. If a scholarship covers only the tuition fees, be aware that you need to finance your own living expenses (rent, food and insurances) for the duration of your studies. RSM does not offer scholarships for the pre-master programme. We do however offer a maximum of 2 scholarships per academic year to RSM pre-master students enrolling in an MSc programme.

Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University (RSM) offers multiple scholarships to prospective students from non-EEA countries who are not entitled to pay the EEA tuition fee, provided their grades are considered ‘excellent’. RSM also offers one scholarship, the Erasmus Trustfonds Scholarship, to students from EEA countries. 

Besides scholarships awarded by RSM, there are also scholarships awarded by the Dutch government or other organisations that are available if you meet certain criteria such as nationality, age, etc We have listed some of them below but we encourage you to use resources such as Grantfinder or the Scholarship Portal to find additional scholarships.

Scholarship tips

  • Contact the Ministry for Higher Education in your home country to see whether there are scholarship options.
  • We have virtual information session covering all you need to know about scholarships and financial aid. Watch it here.

For students from the Netherlands or the EU/EEA, it may be possible to apply for limited funding towards payment of your tuition fees. Find out whether you meet the nationality and age requirements and read more information about the application process here.

Other expenses

After having filled in all of the necessary application information on the Online Application Form (OLAF) and uploaded the required documents, applicants with a degree obtained outside the Netherlands will be asked to pay a non-refundable €100 handling fee. This fee can be paid online via the Erasmus Payment System which uses either iDEAL (for those with a Dutch bank account) or PayPal (which can be linked to any bank account or credit card worldwide). It is important that applicants complete the payment process as indicated, otherwise the system cannot register the payment.

The additional expenses in addition to tuition and general living costs (see below) vary per programme and may include:

  • Study materials such as books, readers and business cases
  • Costs involved in kick-off meetings
  • Costs related to travel, international excursions and compulsory exchange semesters or internships abroad

For a reasonable standard of living in the Netherlands, you should have an income of between €1,000-€1,600 per month depending on your lifestyle. Further information about the costs of living in the Netherlands and related subjects can be found on this website. Below is an example of monthly expenditures:

Furnished accommodation, including gas and electricity  €   500-900
Medical insurance  €   50
Telephone/internet €   15-25
Food €   200 - 300
Books, recreation, clothing €   200 - 300
Public Transportation €   50
Total €  average 1000 - 1625
Other potential expenses:  
Buying or renting a bike €  100 - 250 (for the full 3 years)
In private residence (not student housing) yearly municipal and water taxes €  100 - 300 (per year)

Please ensure, prior to your arrival at RSM, that you have or will have sufficient funding available to finance your stay at RSM. Finding a part-time job, may be an option, but can not be guaranteed. You should therefore not rely on finding other ways to supplement your income during your studies. For additional information on obtaining a part-time job, visit the website of the Nuffic.

For EEA students there are no formal restrictions in finding work in the Netherlands, but students with a lack of Dutch language skills will find it difficult to secure employment. Non-EEA students are subject to labour regulations, which makes the likelihood of obtaining a work permit very small. We therefore ask students not to rely on this possibility. We do not encourage students to combine studies with the heavy workload from a part-time job.

Admission & application

The selection for IM/CEMS is very competitive so it's important that applicants are well prepared for the selection process.

For information about the CEMS programme and the partner schools:

Apply on time! Application starts on the 1st of October and closes on the 31st of January. We advise you to apply as early as possible. If the majority of applicants have applied early, the final results can also be published earlier

Next to meeting the minimum requirements for the MSc International Management, applicants also go through the CEMS selection interview.

Approximately 100 students will be invited to the interview round. The exact number depends on the amount and quality of applications.

The online interview will focus on your motivation to participate in the programme as well as two key CEMS competencies: initiative taking and result orientation. 

The final ranking will be made in the beginning of March and is based on the Grade Point Average (GPA) or GMAT score as well as the scores of the selection interview.

Depending on the number of available exchange spots, approximately 75 students will be selected for the programme and receive an offer of admission.

All students in the IM/CEMS programme complete one semester at one of the CEMS partner schools.

During the application process, applicants are asked to indicate their top 12 preference of the CEMS partner schools for exchange. You will be informed of the exchange destination and semester you have been allocated together with the offer of admission around the first week of March.

Exchange slots per school are limited. This means that students applying for popular destinations may not be selected for their first choice, but instead for their second, third, or other preferred school. Applicants with higher grades/GMAT scores and interview results will have better chances for selection for their preferred destination.

A specific exchange destination should not be your main reason for choosing the IM/CEMS programme.

In addition, the following guidelines will be followed:

  • external (non-RSM) applicants are preferred to spend the fall semester at RSM, allowing them to experience student life at RSM and in Rotterdam first, prior to going on exchange

  • exchange is not possible to the applicants country of origin or the country of undergraduate studies/bachelor programme

  • It is not possible to change or negotiate your exchange destinations after the selection.

Information on the CEMS partner schools can be found on www.cems.org.

Country University name

Australia

The University of Sydney Business School, USYD

Austria

Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration, WUW

Belgium

Université Catholique de Louvain, UCL (Louvain-la-Neuve)

Brazil

Fundaçao Getulio Vargas - EAESP (Sao Paulo)

Canada

Richard Ivey School of Business (London)

Chile Universidad Adolfo Ibanez

China

Tsinghua SEM, TSEM (Beijing)

Czech Republic University of Economics Prague, VSE

Denmark

Copenhagen Business School, CBS (Copenhagen)

Egypt The American University in Cairo School of Business

Finland

Aalto University School of Economics (Helsinki)

France

HEC Paris, (Jouy-en-Josas)

Germany

University of Cologne, UoC

Hong Kong

Hong Kong School of Science and Technology, HKUST

Hungary

Corvinus University of Budapest, CUB

India

Indian Institute of Management Calcutta

Ireland

UCD Michael Smurfit School of Business, UCD (Dublin)

Italy

Università Commerciale Luigi Bocconi, UB (Milan)

Japan

Keio University (Tokyo)

Korea (South)

Korea University Business School (KUBS)

Norway

Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration, NHH (Bergen)

Poland

Warsaw School of Economics, SGH

Portugal

Faculdade de Economia da Universidade Nova de Lisboa (Lisbon)

Singapore

NUS Business School

South Africa University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business

Spain

ESADE (Barcelona)

Sweden

Stockholm School of Economics, SSE

Switzerland

University of St. Gallen, HSG

Turkey

Koc University, Graduate School of Business (Istanbul)

United Kingdom

London School of Economics, LSE

United States Cornell SC Johnson College of Business

Housing & immigration

Immigration & visas

Find out everything you need to know about entry visas & residence permits for non-EU or EEA students at RSM.

Housing

Finding housing in Rotterdam can be tricky. To help you in your search for housing, we have compiled some helpful resources

thumbnail for IM/CEMS promotion video with students and academic director

This is one of the most challenging yet most rewarding times of my life. We learn to be critical about long-standing concepts. IM/CEMS gives me the chance to follow my interest through electives while not losing sight of the bigger picture. And the best part: the people in the programme are open to new opinions, challenge your opinions, and come from a multitude of cultures and backgrounds. You learn with and also from your classmates.

Laura Maria Breuer (MSc International Management/CEMS 2021)

Laura Maria Breuer

Is it right for me?

CEMS students are academically high achieving and are also highly socially aware, culturally sensitive, and engaged in the world and with the people around them.

You and your classmates will be admitted to the programme based on your excellent bachelor performance, fluency in at least three languages, and a global orientation and motivation.

You’ll be part of a cohort of motivated, ambitious, and active students who work hard but also like to have fun together. Time management skills are essential, but also rewarding.

So if you are hard-working and enjoy meeting new people, the IM/CEMS programme is the right fit for you.

Are you still in doubt?

Would you like extra information or support? We are here to help!

More to explore

18 September 2023

Webinar hosted by the Academic Director

Take a virtual tour across our campus

RSM campus

Will you lead or will you follow?

I Will