Now that 2019 is past us, lets focus on 2020. To start off the year I asked the 2018-2019 PRME Champions 5 questions in relation to PRME and will be posting their answers throughout the week. First off I asked them to list one or two initiatives connected with their institutions and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that they are most looking forward to in 2020.
Carole Parkes, Winchester Business School, United Kingdom
The University of Winchester has become a PRME signatory (and Champion) as a whole University. This facilitates more interdisciplinary and collaborative work on the SDGs across subjects and disciplines and aligns with the University Strategic Plan which is set around the SDGs. To support this we have established a board level University Sustainability Committee reporting to the Senior Management Team and a Sustainability Community of Practice to engage colleagues working on the SDGs.
Alec Wersun, Glasgow Caledonian University, United Kingdom
In 2020 Glasgow Caledonian University (GCU) is most looking forward to the United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP 26, that will take place in Glasgow, Scotland from November 9-19th 2020. In the run up to, and during, COP 26, GCU will be engaging both staff and students in Climate Change activities, building on the work of GCU’s Climate Justice Centre. In November 2019, GCU took part in a PRME Champions Project that aims to make Carbon Literacy Training available to faculty and students in business school and universities around the world. We will continue to roll this out in 2020.
Paul Palmer, Cass Business School, United Kingdom
I’m looking forward to continuing our Schools Mentoring Programme. We have partnered with Sir John Cass’s Foundation to deliver mentoring in school for business students as part of an accredited module in their degree programme. We are also partnering with other institutions in the PRME network to share best practice and encourage others to adopt this form of integrated learning in the community. I am also looking forward to continuing our work integrating SDG activity on the curriculum with a focus on making it more experiential.
Jill Bogie – Hayley Pearson – Morris Mthombeni, Gordon Institute of Business Science, South Africa
There are so many to choose from but two come to mind. First The Young SDG Innovators is an initiative of the UN Global Compact (UNGC) in conjunction with local networks in 10 countries around the world, including the Global Compact Network South Africa (GNCSA). The Young SDG innovators are nominated and sponsored by their employers and are all high-performing individuals under age 35. The programme started in October 2019 and we have had 2 meetings so far but the main fun will begin when the SDG Innovators finalise their challenge definitions towards end of January and they state in the work of SDG innovation in earnest. The programme runs to June 2020, where final presentations will take place in New York to coincide with the UN Global Compact Leaders Summit in June 2020. Several GIBS faculty members who are participating as mentors to the Young SDG Innovators in South Africa.
Second, we are looking forward to the 7th International Symposium on Cross-Sector Social Interactions (CSSI2020) that is being held in June 2020 at PRME Champion school, Kemmy Business School at the University of Limerick in Ireland. For the first time the CSSI conference has a track for papers and discussion on Partnerships and PRME: Integrating and scaling RME and ERS practices. This track was proposed by three PRME Champion schools and another colleague from the CSSI community. The panel chairs include myself, Prof Jennifer Leigh from Nazareth College of Rochester, School of Business and Leadership (USA), Prof Sheila Killian, Kemmy Business School (Ireland), and Prof Carole Parkes from the University of Winchester Business School (UK).
Sanchi Maheshwari, Hanken School of Economics, Finland
We are launching two Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) on Future Learn! One of the courses is titled ‘’ Organising for the Sustainable Development Goals ‘’. This has been a year-long collaborative project with three other PRME Champions Schools- Audencia Business School in France, La Trobe Business School in Australia and ISAE/FGV in Brazil. The other course is titled ‘’Introduction to Humanitarian Logistics’’. Both these courses aim at making education on SDGs openly and freely accessible to people around the world! The course open February 17th and January 20th respectively. These courses can be taken by anyone anywhere in the world, so please help us spread the word.
Another initiative that we are working on diligently towards is reducing our own environmental impact. We started the journey last year with calculating our CO2 emissions and this year we plan to roll out a comprehensive action plan aimed at reducing our emissions and our environmental footprint. We also start to offset our Co2 emissions this spring. So, if there is any school with experience on this or just wants more info, please reach out to us! We will be more than happy to learn and exchange knowledge.
Suzanne Young, La Trobe Business School, Australia
We are introducing an international sustainability experience subject in 2020. The subject will explore the interconnection of place, society and the environment, and culminate in a two-week overseas field trip in locations across China and Vietnam. We have also received New Colombo Plan funding for 15 students to go on a sustainability-related study tour in Indonesia next year. In collaboration with Ceres, an Australian environmental education centre, our students will visit and work with social enterprises across Indonesia.
Evgenia Pashkevich, IBS-Moscow, Russian Federation
In 2020 we are looking forwards to starting to use SDGs Dashboard. The SDG Dashboard is a collaborative data reporting and analytics platform for global business schools to share their best practice impacts on the UN SDGs. Although we have already started using it we will really be diving in this year.
Christian Hauser, University of Applied Sciences of the Grisons, Switzerland
This year we will be hosting the Responsible Management Education Research Conference in fall 2020. The forum is intended to engage multiple stakeholders in a dialogue around Agenda 2030 and enhance further collaborations in education, research and business practices to advance the SDGs.
Sheila Killian, Kemmy Business School, Ireland
We have a Masters-level course in Corporate Responsibility which takes in issues of ethics and sustainability, and is a core course on a series of our Masters courses in areas like taxation, financial services, insurance and so on. We’ve been reworking the structure and content to focus more directly on the SDGs, and I’m excited to see how this one will pan out this Spring.
Gustavo Fructuozo Loiloa, ISAE/FGV, Brazil
Our challenge for the year 2020 is to increase the level of knowledge of employees, teachers and students in relation to the SDGs, seeking greater integration of curriculum, research and operational activities to broaden our impact as a business school. Also, our biggest mission for next year is to link everything we do about the SDGs to the target level, to effectively know our contribution to national and international indicators.
Alex Hope, Newcastle Business School, United Kingdom
We are redeveloping our Undergraduate Programme across the Business School and taking the opportunity to explicitly embed the SDGs throughout the curriculum.
Kutlwano Ramaboa, Graduate School of Business, University of Cape Town, South Africa
We have a lot of SDG-led initiatives, but have never mapped them. This year we aim to bring this information together.
Rumina Dhalla, Gordon S. Lang School of Business and Economics, University of Guelph, Canada
In 2020 we look forward to building and strengthening Global alliances with other PRME Champion Schools and PRME Signatory schools. One of the strong benefits of belonging to the PRME Champions group of committed business schools is the opportunity to share resources and experiences, work on collaborative projects to accelerate integration of SDG content in teaching, increasing interest and participation in collaborative research projects, and in exploring enriching learning opportunities such as deep learning journeys. As Vice-Chair of the PRME NA Chapter, I am looking forward to exploring collaboration opportunities with other PRME NA Signatory schools on research, teaching and student related activities.
PRiMEtime 