From Lyon to London: An emlyon Student’s Experience at LIS

Last year, we proudly began a strategic collaboration with emlyon business school, one of France's most prestigious grandes écoles. This partnership provides LIS with long-term support to pursue our mission of championing interdisciplinary approaches to address complex challenges in higher education.

As part of this collaboration, we’ve had the pleasure of welcoming exchange students from emlyon to the LIS campus, allowing them to experience our unique, interdisciplinary learning environment firsthand.

In May-June of this year, we were thrilled to host four first-year emlyon students—Anaïs, Ayath, Camille, and Norah—who joined us for two months as part of the inaugural LIS x emlyon Study Abroad Programme. Then, in November, 15 additional emlyon students will join us to complete their '"ID Majeur" taking our Superconcepts, Mental Models, Design Methods, and Mixed Methods Research and Interdisciplinarity classes.

We caught up with Anaïs to hear about her journey and reflections as one of our first exchange students...

LIS: Hey Anaïs, please could you introduce yourself to the LIS community?

A: Hello everybody! I’m Anaïs Berger, a second-year Global BBA student at emlyon Business School. I spent 2 months in London studying at the London Interdisciplinary School (May-June 2024) as an international student coming from France. I’m a creative but also very organised person who thrives in a business environment such as emlyon’s.

LIS: Why did you decide to come to LIS and what attracted you to the university?

A:  I decided to come to LIS to discover a new study setting. By that, I mean being able to learn interdisciplinary methods and skills that allow the students to tackle any topic they want in any way they want.

I knew LIS was different from regular universities when it came to teaching but I wasn’t aware of the amount of freedom the students had: it was unthinkable as a French student. In France, courses are taught in a very academic way which makes it difficult to think about the essence of the subject. Students are usually considered executors; at LIS they can be actual thinkers, and that’s what made me come to London.

LIS: What was the project that you worked on at LIS?

A: Once I arrived in London, I met my other emlyon colleagues; together, we worked on a project on “food deserts”, which is a common issue in East London. Food deserts can be defined as the lack of financial and spatial accessibility to healthy food.

For this project, emlyon partnered with LIS and SHIFT (an innovation agency based in the Queen Elizabeth’s Olympic Park, who work with businesses and innovators to improve local outcomes and set standards for sustainable cities worldwide). Working hand in hand with SHIFT, emlyon students had one objective: research the “food desert” issue from an interdisciplinary perspective. To do so, we studied multiple London boroughs considering many factors like health, education, incomes and much more.

SHIFT invited us to their headquarters in the Olympic Park in Stratford for a debrief and our team had the opportunity to have a tour and enjoy the local area.

LIS: What were the main outcomes of the project?

A: The research provided substantial value to SHIFT by contributing knowledge on food deserts in East London. Additionally, SHIFT requested a comparison with the situation in France to better contextualise the issue.

Through our research, we highlighted existing solutions that have been implemented locally, such as community gardens and shared kitchens, and proposed potential solutions to explore further, including partnerships with specific start-ups focusing on vertical farming.

The emlyon students delivered two presentations of approximately 40 minutes each to SHIFT. With support from LIS faculty, we were able to engage in meaningful exchanges on the topic with professionals from diverse backgrounds. It was an incredibly enriching experience.

LIS: What insights and skills did you gain from learning in an interdisciplinary environment? How do you plan to apply these insights to your future studies or career?

A: The most useful competency I gained from this experience was open-mindedness. I was able to rediscover what freedom was at LIS; by the way the students expressed themselves and even by living in London in general.

I particularly enjoyed sitting and taking the time to consider the subjects, rather than hurry to get to the next steps. The interdisciplinary methods I learnt enabled me to broaden my mind and way of thinking. I also had the chance to discover the "Double Diamond” method thanks to an LIS professor. I plan to use these skills in my future career because they were so inspiring and meaningful, I couldn’t imagine working without them now. I am so grateful to LIS for showing us who they are, how they work and welcoming us into their amazing university.

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Thank you so much, Anaïs! It was a pleasure to welcome you and your fellow emlyon students to our East London campus. We’re excited to see all the ways you’ll apply what you’ve learned at LIS to your future endeavours.

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