The “Advances in Finance and Accounting” (AFA) Professional + Research Master's degree prepares you for careers in insurance, banking, corporate financial management, market finance and accounting, financial institutions (banks or insurance companies), or in consulting or auditing firms.

While this program is a stepping-stone towards high-level careers in the professional world, it is also an opportunity to obtain a Doctoral degree, leading to outstanding careers in the professional world but also to academic and research positions, either in university-based or in public/private research organizations.

This AFA master's degree provides a full English, high-level instruction in complementary fields such as financial markets, corporate finance, banking, insurance, auditing and accounting. Its specificity resides in providing in-depth fundamental notions in all of these areas together with advanced tools needed for analysis, treatment and modeling of finance, accounting and audit data.

The AFA program is associated with the Risk Graduate school GS@UGA, a thematic program aiming to provide a solid knowledge in various fields (technology, nature), including financial risks, crisis prevention, management, the resilience of critical infrastructures, and territories, with a focus on insurance and risk coverage.

Strengths

• An innovative "learning-by-doing" approach in which the student achieves a high level in finance and accounting through practice and research activities as part of a structured learning process. The teaching environment, based on outstanding research and the newest scientific advances, allows students to develop and use core research skills that are important in both the professional and academic world.
• The possibility of finding internships in France and abroad, as it is an international program taught entirely in English, with students coming from various countries. Fluency in English in the field of finance is important to broaden the spectrum of internship opportunities and job positions. Many AFA students do their end-of-year internship, which generally begins in February / March, at international companies, and obtain excellent positions at such companies thereafter.
• There is a strong involvement of students by the means of presentations prepared in groups, participation in research work led by professors, or realization of a term paper which needs performing literature reviews to uncover new perspectives, putting forward a research problem that is of interest for the professional and academic world, analyzing financial and accounting databases, and presenting the results in a convincing and structured way ;
• High-level, full English instruction in complementary fields of study including market finance, corporate finance, banking, insurance, auditing, and accounting;
• Opportunity for acquiring in-depth tools needed for analysis, treatment, programming and modeling of audit, accounting and finance data;
• Partnerships with the Doctoral School of Management Sciences (EDSG n° 275), the Center for Applied Management Research CERAG UR 7521, one of the most important research center in management sciences in France, The European Institute for Financial Data (EUROFIDAI), and various other financial institutions such as Euronext and the Caisse des Dépôts. In particular, the AFA program has partnerships with the Multidisciplinary Institute in Artificial Intelligence of the University Grenoble Alps, which aims to conduct research and offer courses for students in artificial intelligence at the highest level. Thanks to these partnerships some students benefit from assistance with their internships and may also obtain doctoral scholarships.

This program is for you...

Students possessing M1 or M2 degrees in management, economics, mathematics, science, or engineering, and second or third-year students from Grandes Ecoles of commerce or engineering are invited to apply.

Depending on the number of available places, access to the Advances in Finance and Accounting Master's program is automatically conferred to students having obtained the necessary ECTS credits in the Master 1 program of Finance at Grenoble IAE.
 

Curriculum

• Databases & Programming for Finance and Accounting
• Econometrics for Finance and Accounting

• Portfolio Theory and Management
• Accounting Information and Financial Markets
• Organization Theory

• Fixed Income Securities
• Derivatives
• Advanced Corporate Finance

• Empirical Finance, Banking, and Insurance
• Accounting and Auditing Theory

• Literature Review and Research Problem
• Methodology and Analysis
• Defense

• Master Thesis