Since its inception 20 years ago, Business Intelligence (BI) has become a huge industrial domain and a major economic driver, however overlooked by academics. It encompasses many scientific and technological fields including data warehouses, data mining, content analytics, business process management, visual analytics, and requires competences in information systems, web science, decision science, software engineering, and innovation and entrepreneurship. The Erasmus Mundus Joint Master Degre Programme in Information Technologies for Business Intelligence (IT4BI) is designed to provide understanding, knowledge and skills in this broad scope of fields. Its main objective is to train computer scientists who understand and help develop the strategies of modern enterprise decision makers.

The programme favours the integration of students into a network of specialists and researchers in BI. The curriculum is jointly delivered by Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) in Belgium, Université François Rabelais Tours (UFRT) in France, Ecole Centrale Paris (ECP) in France, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) in Spain, and Technische Universität Berlin (TUB) in Germany. Scholars from academic partners around the world and partners from leading industries in BI, private R&D companies, service companies, public research institutes, and public authorities will contribute to the programme by training students, providing computers, software, course material, job placement or internship perspectives, as well as financial support.

This consortium will prepare the graduates not only to answer today s professional challenges by a strong connection with the needs coming from the industry, but also to pursue their studies into doctorate programs, through strong connections with the researchers and innovators views.

IT4BI is a 2-year (4 semesters, 120 ECTS) programme. The first year is devoted to fundamentals: the first semester at ULB, the second one at UFRT. Then, all students participate to the European Business Intelligence Summer School. In the third semester, the programme offers three specialisations at ECP, UPC and TUB and students move to the partner of the chosen specialisation. The fourth semester is dedicated to the master's thesis and can be realised either as a placement in industry, or as an internship in a research laboratory in any full or associated partner. Eventually, all students will be gathered in the final event “Business Intelligence: Innovation Meets Research”.

The tuition language is English. The programme targets students with a Bachelor of Science (or a level equivalent to 180 ETCS) with major in Computer Science, as well as an English proficiency corresponding to level B2 of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. Upon completion of the program, graduates will be awarded with a multiple degree, the national master's degrees from ULB, UFRT and the university of the specialisation.