Executive Summary

CEMS is a global alliance of leading business schools, multinational companies and NGOs jointly delivering a pre-experience Master in International Management (CEMS MIM) programme that prepares future generations of responsible leaders.

CEMS has a strong commitment towards the implementation of the six PRME principles as outlined below and has made significant progress aligning with each of the principles in the past two years.

Principle 1: Purpose

CEMS’ vision is rooted in educating the purpose generation. Each of the elements in the CEMS curriculum is carefully designed with its own purpose to increase the awareness and preparedness of the students to face future business challenges, including Block Seminars, Global Citizenship Seminars, Skill Seminars, Business Projects, CEMS Core and Exclusive Courses, Elective Courses and Global Courses.

There are also purposeful student-led regional events that align with the commitment to sustainability, such as the DACH Forum, LATAM Forum, Marenostrum, Nordic Forum and V4 Conference, and all these events have been a great success in the past two years despite the global pandemic.

Through curricular and extracurricular activities, CEMS students are exposed to critical thinking and made aware of the challenges faced in today’s globalized world.

Principle 2: Values

CEMS is a value-based organization. The CEMS Vision and Mission guide the alliance in the communication with its member schools, Corporate and Social Partners, as well as in the offering of the CEMS MIM programme.

CEMS develops the students’ mindset and instills the CEMS values from the moment they are accepted into the CEMS MIM programme through to after graduation via the CEMS Global Values Statement.

Some CEMS awards recognize the students and alumni who have shared and practiced the CEMS values and contribute towards the society, such as the “CEMS Alumni of the Year Award” and the “CEMS Philippe Louvet Innovation Award”.

Principle 3: Method

The CEMS MIM curriculum is co-created and carefully-designed by academic directors from the CEMS member schools, with input from Corporate/Social Partners, as well as CEMS students and alumni. Further, the curriculum is continuously evolving with the times and further modified to be in tune with the CEMS values.

For quality assurance, every member school is subject to a “Peer Review” which aims to establish a high level of quality in all CEMS-related activities and to ensure programme satisfaction level meeting the best standards as well as to provide opportunities for practice sharing. Fourteen CEMS member schools have successfully completed the CEMS Peer Review in the past two years.

CEMS also creates an environment for students to put what they have learnt from theory into practice through various activities, such as the CEMS Global Responsibility Week and the consulting projects offered by New Generation Consulting, in addition to the Business Projects in the curriculum.

Principle 4: Research

Research is at the forefront of all academic activities at all CEMS member schools. Collectively, at the global level, CEMS faculty teams engage in collaborative research leading to publications, and bring their research insights into teaching. Faculty within CEMS member schools collaborate globally to work on shared areas of interests, such as the Global Leadership and Cross Cultural Management Faculty Group and the Business and the Environment Faculty Group. Also, CEMS students can engage in “issue-focused” research projects with “internationality” as an optional programme element.

Principle 5: Partnership

CEMS was built on the vision of creating a bridge between the academic and corporate worlds. The core success from CEMS stems from a solid partnership with academics, corporates and NGOs in the alliance.

There are numerous CEMS events that bring together the academic, corporate and/or social partners together every year, such as the CEMS Corporate Partners’ Conference, CEMS Career Forum, CEMS APAC Week, CEMS Global Recruitment

Event, and the Estoril Conferences. All these events would not have been so successful without the great support from the academic, corporate and social partnership in the past two years.

Principle 6: Dialogue

CEMS engages all its stakeholders in dialogues through bi-annual or annual meetings/events, encouraging frequent communication, updates, best practice sharing of the past as well as to brainstorm new ideas to look forward to the future. The major signature event every year is the CEMS Annual Events.

Also, each level of the CEMS governance, including the Strategic Board, General Assembly, Academic Committee, Management Council, Programme Managers, Corporate Relations Managers, Student Board and Alumni Association, will meet one to three times a year depending on the needs of their respective functions.

From time to time, CEMS has also gathered representative stakeholders to form task forces to analyze particular areas of improvement in the CEMS MIM programme. The most recent task forces are the Diversity and Inclusion Task Force and the Graduate Profile Task Force.

Looking forward, CEMS will continue its efforts in aligning its commitment with the CEMS values as well as the PRME principles. Further work will be continued for the Diversity and Inclusion and the CEMS Graduate Profile 2035. A Strategic Board initiative is carried out to reconfirm CEMS values and there are new initiatives to be implemented such as Thought Leadership to bring the CEMS alliance to another level.