We are delighted to share some important news with you. EABIS and the European Foundation for Management Development (EFMD) have recently formed a new Joint Advisory Board to better leverage each organisation’s capabilities to help shape future globally responsible leaders. The stepping up of the bilateral partnership and strategic relationship is expected to build an influential alliance for change that has both depth of content and scale.

The Joint Advisory Panel

The Joint Advisory Board’s remit will be to fully harness the complementary competencies of EABIS, Europe’s leading alliance on corporate responsibility research, education and training, and EFMD, a globally recognised leader in management education and accreditation standards for business schools. By leveraging each other’s capabilities, the panel will be able to provide business schools, researchers and policy makers with invaluable resources, expertise and guidance to develop curricula, knowledge and policies to meet the management needs of businesses.

The new panel will include key executives from both organisations including Professor Eric Cornuel, Director General of EFMD, Professor Gilbert Lenssen, President of EABIS, and Peter Lacy, Executive Director of EABIS. The panel will also include senior leaders from corporations and business schools across Europe.

The expanded relationship will also include future joint projects related to the creation of knowledge centres, closer coordination of resources and focused initiatives to make business in society issues a standard part of business school curricula in Europe.

Previous and Ongoing Collaborations

The Joint Advisory Board follows on the heels of what has been a very successful strategic relationship that, since 2003, has resulted in a number of important events, projects and collaborations (see below for examples) to bring issues surrounding the role of business in society to the forefront of management education, training and research agenda in Europe. Following is a list of some of our previous collaborations and joint efforts:

• Mapping the State of European Management Education – A collaborative study resulting in Europe’s first online directory of more than 170 business schools
• Integrating Corporate Responsibility into Accreditation Standards – Working together to incorporate business in society issues into EFMD’s accreditation standards
• EABIS’ Annual Colloquium – EFMD has served as a valuable partner and participant in EABIS’ annual Colloquium Journals and Publications – EABIS and EFMD have already worked on joint journal special editions and a “Green Book” on corporate responsibility is planned for 2007
• Shaping the European Research Agenda – Working together to promote corporate responsibility research and knowledge through EABIS’ CSR Platform
• Resource Centre – EABIS and EFMD are currently scoping out an online business and society gateway to provide members and others with access to key resources
• Governance Collaboration – Professor Cornuel is currently a member of the EABIS Supervisory Board and Professor Lenssen sits on EFMD’s Board

We look forward to developing this important relationship with EFMD across many different areas and well into the future.

The EABIS Team