SAS® and UCL sign new extended partnership

SAS and UCL strengthen and enlarge partnership for “Data Management, Data Mining and Statistics

TERVUREN, Oct. 10 2008

During SAS Forum Belgium & Luxembourg, SAS’ annual Business Intelligence Conference that took place on Thursday 9 October in the Aula Magna in Louvain-la-Neuve, UCL and SAS signed a partnership broadening the scope of an existing and successful collaboration.

In 2002, SAS and Université catholique de Louvain – Institut de Statistique started their partnership in “data management and data mining” to answer a basic market need:  a growing demand for young graduates trained in data management and analytics“. Over the years, more than 100 students at the “Institut de Statistique” at UCL completed the data management and data mining course track.

Today more than ever,  business requires reliable and consistent data and trustworthy analysis to support strategic decision making, SAS and UCL decided to strengthen and enlarge their partnership towards “Data Management, Data Mining and Statistics”.

The courses will no longer be restricted to students of Institut de Statistique.  Now all students of the Académie Louvain can also include the data management and data mining courses in the Master training curriculum.

In addition, the training capacity will be tripled: every year UCL - in partnership with SAS - will train 45 students with diverse academic backgrounds (engineers, scientists, economists,  ..) in using SAS Solutions to solve crucial analytical business problems.

On top of these trainings, UCL and SAS will organize a series of “short courses” that will allow business users to leverage the academic and analytical expertise of Institut de Statistique.

About UCL
The Institut de statistique has been created in 1992. It coordinates and organises all the statistical activities at the Université catholique de Louvain across the border of different faculties. UCL on the web: www.uclouvain.be

About Académie de Louvain
The Académie universitaire ´Louvain´ was constituted on 29 June 2004, by virtue of a higher education decree, and groups together the Catholic University of Mons (FUCaM), University of Notre-Dame de la Paix at Namur (FUNDP), University of Saint-Louis (FUSL) and the Catholic University of Louvain (UCL). The Académie universitaire ´Louvain´ offers the most extensive study opportunities in the French-speaking community of Belgium. Académie de Louvain on the web: www.academielouvain.be

About SAS
SAS is the leader in business analytics software and services, and the largest independent vendor in the business intelligence market. With innovative business applications supported by an enterprise intelligence platform, SAS helps customers at 45,000 sites improve performance and deliver value by making better decisions faster. Since 1976 SAS has been giving customers around the world THE POWER TO KNOW®.  www.sas.com/belux
SAS and all other SAS Institute Inc. product or service names are registered trademarks or trademarks of SAS Institute Inc. in the USA and other countries. ® indicates USA registration. Other brand and product names are trademarks of their respective companies.© 2008