After 15 years of SIP Reporting on PRME's Six Principles, we have recognized the importance of the Signatory Members’ SIP Reports as a way of reporting their PRME implementation journey within their institutions and as a way of communicating these advances to internal and external stakeholders. With its implementation in 2008 until today, there are more than 2,800 reports available on the PRME website, evidencing the commitment of the signatories within the environment of responsible management education.

During this period, different stakeholders have collaborated for the evolution of sustainability and impact reporting, whether in the higher education or business environment, since multiple frameworks and many metrics are emerging and growing in importance. With the advancement of visibility around the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) metrics, these topics have taken the lead in the need to "walk the talk". Building on an era of advancing the PRME Principles, with an action-oriented mindset, a new SIP reporting scheme can strengthen the convergence of responsible management education, impact and responsible business.

The PRME Sub-Committee on Sharing Information on Progress (SIP) Impact was created and approved by PRME’s Board on 30 November 2020. This Sub-Committee operates under the umbrella of the PRME Board’s Committee on Nomination and Governance. The original purpose of this Sub-Committee was to support and provide PRME Signatories with inspiration for more precise Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) goal-setting and a more thorough recording system for business school activities and impact on sustainable development.

The Sub-Committee is led by Wilfred Mijnhardt, supported by the PRME Secretariat, and consists of a group of members from the global PRME Community. The members were selected based on their professional expertise in SDGs, impact, and impact reporting. The Sub-Committee is composed with respect to diversity (e.g. gender, geography, and ethnicity).

The objective for creating a Sub-Committee was to design a renewed and helpful reporting logic with regards to responsible management education and sustainable development for Signatory Members that aligns with the changing institutional environment. Intended to last from January until June 2021, the committee has grown in its relevance and impact, having its mandate expanded, and ending its activities in June 2023.

As deliverables of the Committee, the Terms of Reference indicated that the group should:

1. Design a renewed SIP/impact reporting logic for Signatory Members, making good use of accreditation, stakeholder and sustainability reporting schemata, respecting the institution’s mission and context.

2. Produce an overview of relevant impact reporting schemes and indicators aligned with the PRME Principles and relevant schemata for sustainability reporting, including a set of illustrations of productive impact reporting practices from PRME Signatories.

3. Recommendation for a new infrastructure/platform for reporting under PRME orchestration: The reporting infrastructure can be more or less technology driven. Either the platform can evolve into a database/data graph-based platform with dynamic reporting facilities using smart and open science technology (making use of technology like AI and persistent identifiers (PID) logic). Or the alternative can be a more traditional document based periodic/thematic reporting mechanism.

To achieve this goal, Committee members met in 23 online meetings from 2021-2023, with a trajectory of activities divided in four phases:

Phase 1: Development of SIP Logic - January to July 2021

During this period, the group worked on defining the terms of reference, and reflecting on the current structure of SIP reporting, through alignment with external stakeholders and inspiration from different ranking models, accreditation and the UN Global Compact.

Phase 2: Consultation process and resourcing - September to December 2021

The consultations had two objectives:

1. Reflect on the intention to update the PRME Principles and include a new principle focused on resilience.

2. Explore the participants' perception of the new logic of SIP Reporting as well as inputs regarding potential indicators and narratives for each Principle.

Phase 3: Operationalization - January to July 2022

Phase 3 was very relevant for forwarding the committee's advances toward the feedback and engagement of the PRME community. Some decisions were fundamental, such as the process of approaching and aligning with rankings and accreditors, identifying indicators and potential narratives, in addition to directing fundraising strategies to support the construction of the PRME Commons.

Phase 4: Setting the stage for implementation - September 2022 to May 2023

With the announcement of the 3-year partnership between PRME and the Economics of Mutuality Foundation (EOM), the work of the SIP Committee was dedicated to creating a solid platform for the strengthening of this partnership.

In this sense, the Committee solidified the Five Design Principles that guides the transition to SIP 2.0 as a way to create the foundations for the platform, in addition to having carried out a new consultation with the PRME community in relation to a new set of questions and indicators for reporting.

Five Design Principles:

1. Beneficial to multiple users
SIP creates value for individual faculty members and students, as well as center directors, deans, and admissions/placement/development officers, and the many external stakeholder who care about the state of business education in the world today (firms, NGOs/NFPs, government, media, prospective students and alumni, donors). It helps those who are doing the day-to-day teaching, research and learning in the business schools, as well as those who are designing and leading the initiatives to better the teaching and learning environment in the schools, and those in the world who affect and are affected by the schools’ work.

2. Inspire for creativity & learning towards progress
Enable emulation, foster problem solving, encourage collaboration, and in the end, make a better world.

3. Use the power of evidence based strategic narratives
Convinced of the power of story-telling, we want to capture narrative reports of a school’s work and add the counts and analytics of initiatives and quantitative assessments of impact.

4. Institutional learning journey
We want to hear about how the schools plan and implement their initiatives, their success (and yes, struggles and failures), and of course, the impact of their work. We want our members to be able to learn from each other and explore each other’s work at any time.

5. Inspired by open science values and smart technology
Explore the emerging (selective open) knowledge base of stored information and analytics that will help business schools serve society by helping each member school best serve its own internal and external stakeholders.

Access the End Report of the Sub-Committee on Sharing Information on Progress (SIP) Impact.

SIP 2.0 provides several opportunities for the PRME and its Signatories to engage in the digital transformation. Benefits for Signatory Members include but are not limited to:

• Build credibility and relevance by showing their commitment to the PRME Principles and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

• Measure and demonstrate progress on the PRME Principles for the individual institution as well as regionally and globally.

• New ”progression" levels aligned with SIP questions, to enable a self-diagnosis of the institution at the time it fills out the report and also to reflect on commitments.

• Through the new PRME Commons where SIP reporting will take place:

  • Receive insight, learn and continuously improve performance. PRME Commons will be a space for global knowledge exchange and peer-learning across countries, regions, and the world with an incentive mechanism for transitioning from first- to second-generation responsible management education (RME). It aims to provide technical help, resources, and guidance at every step of the way, and will also create a space to share good practices. It will help you to identify gaps and set goals to improve your institution's impact and development journey on PRME year over year.

  • Space to share narratives and stories in a systematic way, creating a space for data analysis, tagging, etc.

  • Monitor - not ranking - progress with peers through one of the largest sources of free, public, and trusted responsible business education data.

Webinars, resources, and more coming soon!

June 2023 - Global Forum

• Present ambitions and outlook for the PRME Commons based in the work with the Early Adopters
• Presentation of the SIP Questionnaire (working document) and alignment with the PRME Principles
• Launch transition plan and new SIP guidelines

June to November 2023

• Platform development and usability
• Consultations with the PRME Community regarding the platform
• Board inputs on the SIP Questionnaire

October 2023

• Launch refreshed PRME Principles and final SIP Questionnaire

November 2023 to February 2024

• Platform tests with individually invited schools

July 2023 to February 2024

• Monthly webinars for training on SIP issues, collecting data, accessing the platform, etc. Includes support from the Early Adopters.

March 2024 to June 2024

• New submission period on the PRME Commons
• Schools should complete and submit their SIP during the universal submission period, which will take place from March through June annually, in order to maintain 'active' status in PRME.

July to December 2024

If the school fails to complete and submit their SIP during the universal submission period, they will fall into 'non-communicating' status, and their name and status will be publicly displayed. This status can be reverted to 'active' by submitting the SIP Questionnaire any time between 1 July and 31 December, annually.