The IMPM, or International Masters in Practicing Management, is a unique alternative to the MBA, run by Lancaster and several other business schools around the world, including EBAPE/FGV in Rio de Janeiro.

For Brazil’s IMPM coordinator, Professor Alexandre Faria at EBAPE/FGV, the partnership with Galpão Aplauso in Rio has enabled IMPM students to experience alternative forms of management and organisation and to witness fundamentals that are not found in the traditional management literature.

“Our IMPM students are able to move beyond the standards that tend to govern the field of management,” says Faria.

“In good part it’s because they have now been exposed to the Galpão and its management practices, which are often classified as exotic because they differ from the accepted standards, and we still have much to learn.

“The Galpão has strengthened as an organisation because we no longer consider it as something different or exotic. Our secret is to respect and recognise those who are different in an innovative and generous way. It is exactly because we are equal that we have the right to difference and coexistence.”

The Galpão Aplauso, founded by economist Ivonete Albuquerque ten years ago and located in the port district of Rio de Janeiro, offers the youth of a number of underprivileged communities in the city a programme of professional education that has improved the life not only of the students themselves and their communities, but also of important organisations in Rio de Janeiro.

The award recognises the capacity of the Galpão to integrate young people into the labour market and society in general using innovative management and organisational techniques, and through the building of a cutting-edge teaching standard that combines humanism, ethics, art and entrepreneurship.