The United Nations' Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME) is a global network of business schools that share a set of universal values, as embodied in the United Nations' Global Compact, and is dedicated to promoting these through teaching and research to help build a better society.
The United Nations’ Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME) is a global network of business schools that share a set of universal values, as embodied in the United Nations’ Global Compact, and is dedicated to promoting these through teaching and research to help build a better society.
PRME describes its mission as being:
To transform management education, research and thought leadership globally by providing the Principles for Responsible Management Education framework, developing learning communities and promoting awareness about the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.
Birmingham Business School has led the way in integrating issues of responsibility and sustainability into its teaching and research. The School has recently launched the Centre for Responsible Business, which aims to build upon the School’s objective to place ‘Business at the heart of Society and People at the heart of Business’ by co-ordinating research into the role of business in promoting sustainable development and helping to tackle some of society’s most intractable problems.
Birmingham Business School academics continue to publish research in numerous areas related to responsibility and sustainability in business, including on corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices, corporate corruption, sustainable supply chain management, and social and environmental accounting.
Issues of responsibility and sustainability are deeply embedded into the School’s educational curricula. Its undergraduate and postgraduate degrees include modules in Global Business Ethics, Business and Society, Sustainable Development: Economy and Environment, Environmental Economics, and Social and Environmental Accounting.
A recent initiative, running for the first time in the 2016/17 academic year, has been a new module on the MSc International Accounting and Finance degree called Professional Integrity and the Reflective Practitioner, which aims:
To develop students’ abilities to evaluate different aspects of finance and accountancy practices from an ethical and moral perspective and learn what it takes to be a reflective practitioner who can operate professionally and with integrity in today’s dynamic economic and social world.
PRME membership will help the School to engage with a global community of like-minded institutions. As a first step, Dr Tom Cuckston, Lecturer in Accounting, will be attending the PRME UK and Ireland Annual Conference in June and will be presenting some of the School’s recent work on integrating issues of biodiversity conservation into management education.
PRME membership recognises the world-leading work of Birmingham Business School in bringing issues of responsibility and sustainability into the education of future business leaders. The School will continue to develop its programmes and its thought leadership in this field.
