Professor Hampton, programme manager of all EDHEC's finance-related Master of Science programmes has integrated student presence at some of the events organised by EDHEC Risk as a course module. "Our students have a wonderful opportunity in attending such events. They are among the first to learn about the latest findings of the EDHEC Risk and Asset Management Research Centre. This is obviously an advantage as they can use this information during job interviews and will certainly come across as being aware of the most recent trends.

Events such as the Institutional Days also provide a privileged occasion for our students to network with professionals. I don't know of any other business schools that are able to provide such opportunities to their students."

Dominique Rehese, a Risk and Asset Management students who was present at the conference comments "I was very impressed by the whole event. Mingling with industry professionals and getting a first-hand impression of what drives the investment industry is an invaluable experience for all students interested in a career in this field." 

The EDHEC Risk and Asset Management Research Centre staged the second edition of the EDHEC Institutional Days in Paris recently with over 1,200 delegates and more than 50 top speakers and panellists, including leading European institutional figures. The EDHEC Institutional Days are the most important initiative for delivering research results to finance professionals.

The first day of the conference, the ETF Summit, featured an exclusive presentation of the results of the EDHEC European ETF Survey 2008 and an EDHEC study on the merits and demerits of fundamental indices®. The IPE EDHEC Institutional Asset Management Awards which evaluate the quality of the institutional asset management offerings from investment management firms in Europe were also staged for the first time.

The second day featured the inaugural edition of the EDHEC-Wall Street Journal Europe Institutional Investor Forum. This exceptional event included the participation of keynote speaker Jaap Maassen, First Vice Chairman of the European Federation for Retirement Provision and Director of Pensions and Member of the Executive Board, ABP Investments, who was joined by panellists from leading European pension funds and insurance companies, the European Commission and the World Bank.

Over the two days of the EDHEC Institutional Days, the Pension Fund Conference examined how regulatory and accounting constraints could be integrated into institutional investment management. This conference included an initial presentation of the results of the EDHEC European Investment Practices Survey. In addition, the European asset management companies recognised for the quality of their active equity management in the Alpha League Table drawn up by EuroPerformance and EDHEC presented their investment processes and discussed the sources of their outperformance at the EuroPerformance-EDHEC Alpha League Table Forum. Academic experts from the EDHEC Risk and Asset Management Research Centre presented their applied research and discussed the results with the institutional investor and fund management communities on a range of themes including - Dynamic allocation strategies with ETFs- How to create successful commodities programmes- Novel approaches to inflation hedging- Dynamic risk budgeting in ALM- How to design efficient indices and optimal benchmarks