Founded in 1988, EBS is the oldest privately owned business university in the Baltics. With more than 1100 students, EBS's goal is to provide enterprising people with academic knowledge, skills and values for its successful implementation. EBS offers degrees at Bachelor's, Master's as well as Doctoral levels.
In 2011, EBS was the first Estonian university to establish its subsidiary in Finland. The goal of EBS Helsinki Branch is to provide Finnish students with the possibility to study international business administration by way of session-based learning in English. EBS Helsinki is located close to the city center in Domus Gaudium, Mechelininkatu 3C, 00100 Helsinki.
Values
Mission
We inspire and support our stakeholders to achieve their full potential in value co-creation.
Vision
To be a top-level internationally accredited community of lifelong learning and knowledge sharing. EBS uses and develops the most appropriate study methods and forms to achieve its students’ goals, based on its mission. EBS is a partner to public and private organisations in the development of new products, services and processes. EBS is a competence centre for developing the skills of its staff and teams and for enhancing their development-driven motivation.
Values
The operations of EBS are guided by the following principles:
- ethics;
- social responsibility;
- sustainability.
Core values of EBS:
- Independence. EBS values mobility, flexibility, experimentation, and partner selection based on its mission and vision. This is best achieved under the status of an independent, profitably operating university.
- Cooperation. EBS values new knowledge created through cooperation and acts as a partner to society and businesses through its employees, students and alumni.
- Competence. EBS regards competence as a decisive prerequisite for development and therefore engages in the development and communication of the knowledge that in the long term will be essential to society and organisations.
- Creativity and inquisitiveness. EBS appreciates creativity and inquisitiveness as drivers of development. Educative failures are part of the development process.
- Profitability. profit is as important for a company as water is to a plant. Profit successfully amplifies the results of work done, encourages followers and provides resources for investments and experiments. EBS does not distribute its profits, but invests them in its development and reserves.
Estonian Business School’s credo
We must never forget that the paths people take are in our hands and that we can influence their choice of direction through education.
At the top of our list of priorities is the success of our students, our alumni and those who employ them. We strive to ensure that the majority of our alumni join the ranks of the country’s foremost managers and directors and that all of our graduates are gainfully employed.
A close second on our list of priorities is the success of our own employees. We strive to ensure that they enjoy a meaningful life of constant growth (both personal and professional), ample prosperity and satisfying working conditions. If things go awry in their lives, we give them our support.
Rounding out our podium of priorities is society. We strive to ensure that society develops as quickly as possible in every region in which we operate. By exporting education, we promote Estonia as a rapidly evolving nation boasting a wealth of culture. Our wish, and indeed our obligation, is to provide new opportunities to and otherwise help those weaker than ourselves.
The success of our school as a whole is of course our other main priority. We are convinced that this success will be ensured when our top three priorities are achieved. Every business needs to be profitable in order to survive, but profitability is also a means by which to achieve greater goals. It is like the air, the food and the water which sustain a living thing: it is not the meaning of life, but without it, there can be no life.
Madis Habakuk
Founder of Estonian Business School
Statutes of EBS
Strategy documents
- EBS University Statute
- EBS Code of Academic Ethics
- EBS Harassment Policy
- SA Estonian Business School Statute
- Statutes of the Rector
- EBS Development Plan 2021-2025
- EBS Quality Assurance System
- SA EBS Principles and Procedure of Internal Audit
- EBS Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Plan 2022-2025
- EBS R&D Strategy 2024-2028
Study regulations
- Code of Conduct
- EBS Programme Statute
- Formatting of Student Papers
- Academic Regulations
- EBS Admission Rules
- Criteria for the Assessment of Theses at EBS
- EBS Guidelines for Using AI Chatbots for Teaching and Studies
Data Management Policy
Estonian Businesss School was founded in 1988.
EBS Helsinki was founded in 2011.
Accreditations
| Accreditation | |||
|---|---|---|---|
Regulation of the Government of Republic of Estonia |
|||
|
|||
Institutional Accreditation |
|||
|
 |
||
Quality assessment |
|||
|
|||
Doctoral studies |
|||
|
|||
Bachelor's studies |
|||
|
 |
||
Thematic evaluation |
|||
|
|||
International higher education transitional evaluation |
|||
|
Story of EBS
A few remarks about Estonia may be needed to understand the context where EBS operates. Estonia is a small country in the Northeast of Europe with a population of around 1.4 million people. Between 1941 and 1991 it was part of the Soviet Union, subsequently regaining independence in 1991. Since then, the pace of change in all areas of society and economy has been amazing and Estonia has embraced the idea of market economy without hesitation or compromise. The size of the country and its orientation towards the West has meant that EBS has stressed the international perspective from the start, and the rapidly changing environment has encouraged EBS to respond and adapt at an adequate speed.
When EBS was founded in 1988, it was the first institution in Estonia to introduce diploma business education. Since business administration did not exist in soviet universities, there was no teaching tradition, no faculty and no textbooks: a difficult starting position. Today, the situation is much more favourable, but Estonia is still not Great Britain, and Estonian Business School is not (and does not claim to be) London Business School. Adapting to the Estonian context has meant, for example, that EBS uses many practitioners and higher level managers as lecturers in its courses, and that EBS acknowledges and appreciates most of its students working full-time or part-time in addition to studying. Another factor for our success can be attributed to us using both English and Estonian as languages of instruction, thus preparing students for the Estonian market and beyond.
Starting from the scratch can also be seen as an advantage since we were not tied down by outdated procedures and overwhelming traditions from the past. One example of this is the opportunity to use the right proportion of full-time and part-time lecturers. The opportunity to learn from best practices at other institutions around the world has been extremely useful. The growth and development of EBS reflects what could be called a multiple-customer approach: we have tried to cater not only to our students, but also to our students’ employers and the society as a whole. In doing so, it seems that EBS is well in line with trends among institutions of business education worldwide. The notions of anticipating change, revising traditional programs to fit actual needs, and last but not least, applying management theories and best business practices in the running of the institution itself appear to be gaining more and more ground even in the more traditional and slow-changing environments of Western business schools.