The 3rd Annual Conference of the Association of Asia-Pacific Business Schools (AAPBS) was held at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology duringNovember 25-27, 2007. The conference was seen by more than 90 participants from 46 representative institutions in Asia-Pacific region including 11 from the Chinese mainland. Prof. Qian Yingyi, Dean of Tsinghua SEM, who’s also President of the Association, Associate Dean Prof. Yang Bin, Assistant Dean Prof. Qian Xiaojun attended the conference.

This year’s annual conference focused on “Bridging Academic & Corporate”. Issues discussed included employer’s needs and employees’ career development expectation, MBA and executive education, academic research, corporate social responsibility education, and accreditation by AACSB & EFMD, etc..

Nominated by the Association’s Council, the plenary session of the Association has unanimously agreed that Toemsakdi Krishnamra, Dean of Sasin Graduate Institute of Business Administration of Chulalongkorn University, Thailand served as Vice President and President-Elect of AAPBS for the Year 2008. Toemsakdi Krishnamra will assume the presidency of AAPBS in 2009. It was also agreed by the Council meeting that the next seminar would be held atQueenslandUniversity,Brisbane,Australiain May, 2008, and the 4th Annual Conference would be hosted byFudanUniversity,Shanghai,Chinain November, 2008.

Founded in 2004, AAPBS is a regional and non-profit association initiated by 11 Council member management schools across the Asia-Pacific region. The primary purpose of the Association is to provide leadership and representation in order to advance the quality of business and management education in the Asia-Pacific region. The Association is organized exclusively for educational and outreach purposes. Currently its membership includes more than 90 institutions. As one of the inaugural representative institutions, Tsinghua SEM is among the 16 Council members of the Association. The 1^stAnnual Conference of the Association was held atTsinghuaUniversityinBeijing.The 2nd annual conference took place at Indian Institute of ManagementAhmedabad,India. In addition, AAPBS has held two seminars respectively inBangkok,Thailandin 2006 and inManila,thePhilippinesin 2007.

AAPBS Website: http://www.aapbs.org/