The Higher Education Review Magazine conducted an interview with our President Prof. Florian Pfeffel. In the interview, Prof. Florian Pfeffel explains why accadis Hochschule is one of the 10 most promising Sports Management Universities in Europe.
Could you give us a brief insight into the inception story of accadis Hochschule Bad Homburg?
The predecessor of accadis was founded in 1980. This makes us one of the oldest and most prestigious private educational institutions in Germany. In the 1990s, we started offering bachelor's degrees, and in the 2000s we gained official accreditation and state recognition as University of Applied Sciences. We started as a business school and offer a wide range of programs from International Management to Global Marketing and Health Care. The Sports Management Department was established in 2006 and has quickly become a major player in sports management education and sports business offering teaching, researching and advising the sports industry.
Our undergraduate program is taught in German and English, and our graduate program is taught exclusively in English to emphasize its international footprint – be it in terms of lecture topics, students from abroad or international research collaborations.
Preparing students for the industry remains a challenge for higher education institutes across the globe. How is your university addressing this issue?
Employability, i.e. preparing students for the business world "out there", is part of our DNA. We are a University of Applied Sciences, which is the German term for those institutions that have always focused on the combination of theory and practice, i.e. that have always had the applicability in mind when teaching.
At accadis, we are committed to following a path that consists of three main cornerstones. The first is research. Although it may seem counterintuitive that world-class research is directly linked to employability, it is our ambition to have the most up-to-date knowledge to bring to the business world. We develop our students with this cutting-edge expertise so that they become sought-after employees. This is an asset that companies and institutions value. accadis regularly contributes to major sport management conferences such as EASM (European Association for Sport Management) or WASM (World Association for Sport Management). In addition, accadis is co-editor and major contributor to the scientific anthology on the UEFA EURO 2024 European Football Championship and is researching the event's impact on the Frankfurt metropolitan region.
In addition to knowledge, the embedding of accadis in various sports management networks is key. Together with our students, we carry out consulting projects in the sports business industry in order to give our students experience in the business world and to train the application of their skills. For example, there have been projects for the football club Eintracht Frankfurt, the ice hockey club EC Bad Nauheim, HSG Wetzlar (handball) and RSV Lahn Dill (wheelchair basketball), the German Olympic Sports Confederation DOSB, the famous Bad Homburg Open tennis tournament, to name but a few. We are well represented in most sports – football is the most influential aspect of teaching, research and consultancy, but not the only one – and we integrate our students into these practical activities.
Finally, in addition to the practical application of relevant content and the provision of experience and networks within the curriculum, we offer our students the services of our Career Centre. This accadis service department maintains the business network beyond the integration of companies in the lectures. The Career Centre acquires and presents job offers, organizes career days and fairs and supports students and graduates in their application process.
Employability is thus the aspect that is most important to us at accadis Hochschule Bad Homburg.
What is the uniqueness of the courses offered by your university? How do they help students build a successful professional career?
Individual, excellent, one step ahead. This is our claim and it describes our uniqueness. We are a university with a limited number of students (around 600). This allows us to get to know each of you personally and to respond to your specific needs. Individual attention and personal contact create an unrivalled learning environment, which is particularly beneficial for international students. We also deliver quality and develop quality in our students. Clubs, federations and companies value our excellence. For example, we are (the only) "05er Hochschulpartner", which means that we are the university partner of the 1st Bundesliga football club 1. FSV Mainz 05. We are "Bildungspartner of the Fraport Skyliners", the local basketball team (currently in the 2nd league). And we have numerous Sports Management Alumni who have gone on to careers and prominent positions. For example, the CFO of Ironman is an accadis alumni, as is a Senior Director of Media Rights at Sportfive, and 4 out of 14 team managers at the German Football Association (DFB) have developed their skills at accadis. Interestingly, one of Glasgow Rangers' international representatives was an Indian student who studied at accadis and started the business relationship while still a student. Last but not least: "one step ahead" means that we will not stop developing. We strive to follow the trends in teaching and pedagogy as well as in the sports management industry. accadis' doctoral students have worked on crowd funding for sports clubs, dealing with distant fans and understanding the use of NFTs in sport - long before digitalization and internationalization were on the clubs' agenda.
Having qualified and experienced faculty members is important to ensure smooth delivery of knowledge and guide students toward real world professional success. How does accadis Hochschule Bad Homburg ensure consistent quality of its faculty members?
The most important lever for having a renowned faculty that provides high quality education to the students of accadis is the selection process of the faculty. On the one hand, the appointment process for professors takes into account research skills as well as excellent and up-to-date teaching skills. Only the knowledge that can be communicated and passed on to the students will have an impact. On the other hand, we constantly review the business world and our alumni positions in order to integrate relevant guest lecturers. Staff from the German Football Association (DFB), the German Football League (DFL) and many clubs (in and out of football; e.g. VfL Wolfsburg, GF Aarhus from Denmark, Fraport Skyliners) contribute to our lectures.
Infrastructure of a college plays a crucial role in ensuring hands-on training to the students. Please elaborate on the modern-day infrastructural amenities that accadis Hochschule Bad Homburg offer to its students.
accadis teaches sports management, not sports science. Therefore, we do not need sports facilities to train our students within the program. However, sports management students usually do sports. They can make use of the sports facilities of accadis International School. Student teams for football, basketball, volleyball and cheerleading are formed among the students.
In terms of physical infrastructure, accadis has recently expanded its campus with the addition of a new building. The new building houses the library, the bistro and an events hall. The lecture rooms in the adjacent building are new, clean and equipped with all the IT infrastructure required for modern teaching.
What are the various workshops, seminars and training/internship activities that the students of your college take part in?
In addition to regular lectures, there are three main elements of specific workshops and seminars. Firstly, students undertake a compulsory work placement (the Career Centre assists students with the application process) which is part of the curriculum. Second, students participate in a student consulting project, in which they assist a real club or company in solving a real problem. Last but not least, we offer Business Lounges, where guest speakers provide insights into the business world that go beyond what is taught in the classroom.
Industry-academia partnerships are important for higher education institutes to understand the requirements of the industry. How do you align your pedagogy with industry requirements?
This question has already been answered in detail above. accadis has more than 150 business partners who work with accadis on projects, who work with students (cooperative study program) or who regularly ask accadis for advice. And our students are always involved in industry-academia partnerships, e.g. conducting surveys in the hospitality lounge of a first league football club or developing go-to-market concepts for a sports technology product.
What is the future roadmap of the institute? What kind of innovations are you planning to make in your pedagogy to further improve the quality of your education?
We are constantly expanding our network to include new clubs, leagues and sports. In addition, further internationalization is high on the agenda, especially now that the pandemic seems to be over and international exchanges are becoming easier again. This internationalization includes increasing the number of international research or teaching projects (e.g. current joint activities in South Africa) as well as attracting more international students to the accadis graduate program.
As for our teaching, we strongly believe in the value of face-to-face interaction in studying and learning. So keeping our lecture rooms and lounge areas (with our beloved Starbucks coffee station) up to date is an ongoing task. And the digital infrastructure must fit in perfectly - not to replace the face-to-face learning experience, but to add value to the holistic learning journey.
Is there anything else you would like to add about the institute?
We are the number one sports management education institution in the vibrant Rhine-Main region. Germany's largest airport, Frankfurt, is just around the corner and many national sports associations are based in and around Frankfurt, most notably the German Football Association (DFB), the German Football League (DFL), and the German Olympic Sports Confederation (DOSB). Being located in the heart of Germany's sports capital, Frankfurt, is a competitive advantage for accadis Hochschule Bad Homburg and its students.
Find out more about our Master degree program "Global Sports Management M.A."