On 7 February, the names Eandis and Infrax will disappear to make way for the new company Fluvius. “Although the merger is in line with the economic logic and political momentum, that doesn’t make the challenges any smaller.” That is why the Director of Regulation & Strategy Donald Vanbeveren and our energy professor Leonardo Meeus have decided to supplement the chair's traditional one-on-one research with interactive workshops. The first workshop was about regulatory sandboxes – and Donald pronounced it “super!”

When Deloitte and Vlerick began collaborating on entrepreneurship in 2014, there were plenty of initiatives for start-ups. But once they were ready to progress and had reached the scale-up phase, their managers were generally left to their own devices. The past three years have shown that there was a need for a community of like-minded people. Now our aim is to further strengthen that community and to meet the needs of the new generation of ‘born globals’ with the help of useful benchmarks. Because their burning question remains: how do other scale-ups do it?

By 2050, we need to keep the increase in the global average temperature below 2°C – and ideally below 1.5°C. In order to achieve this goal, the Holy Grail is to switch to electricity en masse. ‘And what about natural gas?’ asked the natural gas transporter Fluxys. “Gas is also renewable. Over the next five years, we want to explore how we can link the – underexplored – possibilities of gas to those of electricity.” And rightly so, because hardly anyone still believes that the future will be entirely electric in 2050.

Volvo Cars no longer defines itself as a car manufacturer but as a mobility provider. This is the core of its Vision 2020 plan, which lays out ambitious but concrete targets. “This target-driven mentality is something that we also see at Vlerick”, remarks Wim Maes, Managing Director of Volvo Car Belux.

Young Belgian companies with ambitions to grow set the bar for growth higher and higher. These scale-ups do not shy away from taking the step to sell aboard, where they generate nearly 30 percent of their total turnover. They are growing smart and are doing so primarily through less risk and hybrid ways for growth, such as licences and strategic alliances. Finally, the average salary that the founders pay themselves has remained constant in the last three years. These are the most significant conclusions of the third edition of the Rising Star Monitor. This annual survey by the Vlerick Business School and Deloitte Belgium provides insight into the trends and challenges for young Belgian companies with growth potential.

We were very pleased to see one of our longest-standing partners, EY, renew his engagement with our alumni community recently. Marc Cosaert, who is the driving force behind the partnership, looks back on “25 years of shared values”.

Within Vlerick's Prime Foundation Partnership with KPMG round-table meetings are being organised, discussing the Belgian energy policy. “We want to act as a sounding board for ideas to achieve the transition to a low-carbon energy system,” says Professor Leonardo Meeus. What started out as a discussion on the Belgian Interfederal Energy Pact evolved towards a broader European focus within the framework of the Energy Union Governance Regulation, stipulating that all member states must prepare a detailed national plan for 2021-2030 describing their ambitions and measures with regard to their energy and climate strategy. Professor Leonardo Meeus and Jorn De Neve (KPMG) share their thoughts.

“By now, we know each other well and know what we can do together. However, we are also just grateful that we can continue our work in this way.” Hudson and Vlerick’s collaboration has already lasted nearly 20 years. Following their renewed Chair Partnership, we spoke to Xavier Baeten, Professor of Reward & Sustainability, and Dirk Buyens and Koen Dewettinck, both HRM Professors at Vlerick.

In the context of the renewed Chair Partnership with Hudson, Ivan De Witte and Marion Debruyne discuss HR challenges: “The ‘war for talent’ pushes companies to get the most out of their own talent pool, now more than ever before. We still have a long way to go.”

On Monday 17 September our Brussels campus had something of a special vibe about it. Our 260 Masters students signed up for this networking event with our corporate partners. We sounded out some reactions and captured the proceedings in images.