FIA University

Next Courses:

• Sept 8-10, 2013: “Strategic Lobbying”, in The Hague, just before Mobility Conference Week. In preparation.
• Oct 14-18, 2013: “Emerging Leaders Program”, in Barcelona, (Click here for more info or registration)

The FIA University made its full debut during the membership Benefits Forum at the FIA Annual General Assembly in New Delhi, last December. Earlier, at the FIA’s World Council for Automobile Mobility and Tourism, the 2012 business plan for the FIA University was approved, the federation endorsing its goal to strengthen the capabilities of automobile clubs around the world through an educational programme.

A grant from the FIA Foundation to the FIA Strategic Programme on Road Safety and Capacity Building means that the idea can now be turned into a reality.

The question is, what exactly is the FIA University? What does the new programme hope to achieve and how will it operate?

“It is a bit like the corporate universities that a lot of companies now have,” says Agustí Milà, the FIA’s manager of membership Services and Business Development. “These are not like traditional universities, where students go to attend courses. Corporate universities are structures within companies that recognise that training is a key part of what it needs to do to achieve its strategic goals.”

FIA University – Progress Report - May 2013

The FIA needs to remain relevant to its members, creating value for them through partnering. With that aim the FIA University was created in 2011, with Thierry Willemarck as mentor.

More information on the FIA University’s mission, participants, programs, content, delivery, management, impact, funding, faculty and benefits can be found in the Executive Summary below:

Click to download:
Executive Summary and Road Map

The FIA University is currently creating contents for its 3 main pillars (1-Strategy & Leadership, 2-Lobbying & Public Policy as well as 3-Functional Expertise), concentrating in 1 and 2 for 2013.

Next steps 2013

Pillar 1: Strategy & Leadership:

• A new ELP edition is announced for October 14-18 2013 in Barcelona. (Click here to open PDF).
• A Top Leaders session is under preparation and to be announced soon.

Pillar 2: Lobbying & Public Policy:

• There will be a one and a half day course on “Strategic Lobbying” preceding Conference Week (Sept 8-10, 2013) and taking advantage of a global event and thus maximizing attendance opportunity and optimising travel time and costs.

Achievements 2013

The FIA University was inaugurated (March 2013) with a 1 week course in Barcelona at ESADE Business School, the Emerging Leaders Program (ELP)

• It targeted clubs’ “emerging leaders” and was attended by 26 participants from 22 clubs and 17 nationalities representing the 4 FIA Regions.
• They had an enthusiastic participation, ranked the course as excellent and will recommend to their management that other colleagues are sent to new courses.
• Both participants and guest speakers from clubs (CAA, TCB, ANWB, AANZ) found that the combination of 1-learning coming from academia, 2-experts from clubs and 3-the dialogue between participants from all over the world was a unique experience.
• There will be a follow up at CW with some participants presenting the projects for their clubs they have engaged in.

Achievements 2012

The FIA University presented its project at the Membership Benefits Forum in New Delhi (Dec 2011), attended by more than 75 club representatives. It was followed by a presentation and lecture on “Strategic renewal in times of change” by Professor Luis Vives, from ESADE Business School, expert in corporate universities who is helping to frame the FIA University.

Click to download:
Presentation "The FIA University project" by Thierry Willemarck
Presentation "Strategic Renewal in Times if Changes" by Dr. Luis Vives

The participants actively contributed with the vision for their clubs in 2020, challenges and opportunities and what they would need from the FIA University in that context, helping to provide contents for the ante mentioned FIA University programs’ 3 pillars

The FIA University has run three “sample sessions” during 2012: at the Spring Meeting (Belgrade, May), Conference Week (Prague, June) and Congreso Americano (Cancún, August):

• Belgrade: the session on “Executive leadership through social networks” was delivered to the WCAMT and SRC members present, a total of 25 top FIA leaders.
• Prague: more than 100 CW delegates participated in the “Shaping our future through advocacy”.
• Cancún: the FIA University facilitated a new session on strategy: “En la Estrategia está el éxito” (Click here to download the presentation), attended by mobility and motorsport clubs from the Americas end elsewhere.

The FIA University inaugural session was presented at the Membership Benefits Forum in Istanbul (Dec 2012), and the first participant to the Emerging Leaders Program was picked among those scoring the highest results answering the quiz. (click here to related news).