The Salling Foundations award scholarships for Commercial and Retail Management students at Aarhus BSS

Many Aarhus BSS students get their first taste of everyday life and the mechanisms at a professional workplace when they complete the internships on their Master’s degree programme. This is true for students on the new degree programme Commercial and Retail Management at Aarhus BSS as well, which had its first intake in September 2020. The programme educates graduates with the title MSc in Economics and Business Administration, who are specialised in the entire retail value chain. The students gain experience from companies across the retail sector, such as Bestseller, Arla and Salling Group, all of which are among the Founding Partners of the degree programme.

The Salling Foundations have donated a total of DKK 5 million for promoting the degree programme as well as the research on which the new programme in retail management is based, and now, the retail group awards three scholarships of DKK 25,000 for the top three internship assignments among the students.

“I am deeply impressed by the academic level among the students. It has been a pleasure to follow the first class of students on the new Master’s degree programme and to observe how they have started their internships with curiosity and great ambition. We would like to acknowledge this with the Ferdinand Scholarship, which is named after Ferdinand Salling, the founder of Salling Department Stores. A scholarship with a great history for the talents of today, which we hope to retain in the industry,” says Louise Gade, Executive Vice President, HR, in Salling Group.

The scholarship is awarded among the 100 students who were admitted to the first class. First, the best assignments are chosen, and then a selection committee consisting of representatives from Salling Group and Aarhus BSS will narrow down the field. Then, a maximum of the 10 best candidates will have the opportunity to pitch their assignments to the management team at Salling Group, who then nominates the final three recipients for the Ferdinand Scholarship.

"It is a great pleasure to observe the development of the degree programme, both in terms of the students' great interest in the area – when they are in school as well as during their internships – and in terms of the great support for the degree programme from business and industry. The ‘Ferdinand prize’ is yet another example of the latter. We are very satisfied with the first class, who will graduate this summer, just like we are happy to see our students’ continuing interest in applying for this programme,” says Thomas Pallesen, dean at Aarhus BSS. 

Aarhus BSS is still experiencing a great deal of interest in the new Commercial and Retail Management degree programme. The most recent class had 82 students, who began their studies in September 2021.

The Ferdinand Scholarship is formally awarded in March 2022.