OST institute changes name and adopts new focus

The Institute for Quality Management and Applied Business Administration (IQB), founded 25 years ago in St.Gallen, will in future operate as the Institute for Organization and Leadership (IOL). According to a press release, the IOL will increasingly focus on the topics of sustainability, organization and leadership under its new name. The institute, which is part of OST – Eastern Switzerland University of Applied Sciences, employs 16 people at the St.Gallen campus of OST.

The IOL, like the IQB before it, sees itself as a “bridge builder between science and practice”, explains institute director Lukas Scherer. “As regionally anchored experts and partners, we have an international appeal in the areas of quality and sustainability, organization and leadership”, he adds. This networking can be demonstrated in numbers, says Scherer. In the past year, the institute worked with 23 partner organizations at home and abroad, completed 48 assignments in the areas of training and further education in addition to successfully implementing 118 projects.

Even with the new name, the IOL will maintain its high standards of quality and retain a link to its early days as a bridge builder. When the IQB was founded 25 years ago, the development of a systematic quality management system was still in its infancy and the institute was one of the pioneers in quality management. Today, the IQB is also the official certification body for eduQua, the first Swiss quality label for adult education providers.