Receive a free download on Management Education and the SDGs

Subscribe to our newsletter and receive access to a free download of Management Education and the SDGs: Transforming Education to Act Responsibly and Find Opportunities, a resource that outlines how PRME and the UN Global Compact can support management education's engagement with the SDGs.

Subscribe
curtainNewsletter.heading

RME in the Classroom: Innovative Pedagogy and Impactful Practice

History

The PRME Working Group on Responsible Management Education in the Classroom: Innovative Pedagogy and Impactful Practice emerged from a growing coalition of PRME educators committed to strengthening responsible management education through innovative pedagogies and transformative classroom practice. Building on the momentum of the i5 Learning in Leadership initiative and wider collaborations among PRME Signatory universities, the group formalizes an expanding community focused on teaching, pedagogic research, and shared resource development. It brings together faculty advancing classroom-based experimentation, certification pathways, and professional development opportunities. Anchored in SDG 4, the Working Group creates space for collaboration, reflection, and global exchange to equip educators with the confidence, skills, and practical tools to embed responsible leadership meaningfully in their teaching.

Purpose

The Working Group exists to strengthen how responsible management education is enacted in day-to-day teaching practice. Through the Pedagogy Working Group and its three Labs, Impactful Five (i5), Innovative Pedagogies for RME, and Industry-centric ESD, we build on PRME’s global reach and community spirit to connect educators who are redesigning curricula, experimenting with classroom methods, and embedding sustainability across disciplines.

Key challenges include translating values into concrete classroom practice, supporting faculty who may feel isolated in pedagogic innovation, and creating shared spaces where teaching, research, and industry engagement reinforce one another. We address these through online and in-person professional development workshops, sessions focused on doing pedagogic research, collaborative resource development, and coordinated publication pathways. By aligning classroom experimentation with scholarly inquiry and community exchange, the Working Group aims to deepen educator confidence, strengthen institutional uptake, and ensure responsible leadership is experienced, not only discussed, in the classroom.

Goals

The PRME Working Group on RME in the Classroom is organised under 3 Labs. The focus of each of the 3 Labs is outlined below:

Lab 1: PRME Impactful Five (i5) Innovative Pedagogies for Responsible Leadership

The i5 Lab builds on the work of the PRME i5 Expert Pedagogy Group and focuses on:

  • The creation, curation and dissemination of i5 resources

  • A global roll out of the 5-stage i5 Certification scheme piloted in Europe

  • Community-building through regular sharing sessions

  • The identification and development of publication opportunities: blogs, opinion pieces, chapters, conference papers and journal articles

Lab 2: Innovative Pedagogies in Responsible Management Education (RME)

The Innovative Pedagogies in RME Lab builds on calls from the academic community for transformative, creative, future- and impact‑oriented learning approaches to RME and focuses on:

  • Providing an international platform for academics to share best practices, case studies, and research on innovative pedagogies in RME

  • Supporting each other and co-creating innovative pedagogical approaches for RME

  • Promoting research activity within the field of innovative Pedagogies in RME

Lab 3: Industry-Centric Education for Sustainable Development

The Industry-Centric ESD Lab builds on the work initiated through the proposed PRME Working Group on Curriculum Transformation for SDG-Aligned, Outcome-Based, and Industry-Centric Education and focuses on:

  • Addressing the critical gap in operationalizing RME by embedding SDG-aligned learning outcomes, industry relevance, and measurable impact within curricula

  • Creating an actionable bridge between academic instruction and real-world sustainability and business challenges through structured industry engagement, applied projects, and outcome-based assessment frameworks

  • Supporting faculty and institutions in curriculum transformation by developing practical toolkits, mapping guides, and capacity-building workshops to redesign programmes in alignment with SDG 4 (Quality Education) and responsible leadership competencies

  • Facilitating regional and international training initiatives, particularly in developing contexts, to strengthen institutional capability for outcome-based, SDG-integrated curriculum redesign

  • Establishing collaborative partnerships with industry stakeholders, academic experts, and PRME Signatories to review curricula and ensure alignment with sustainability challenges, labour market needs, and professional competencies

  • Producing research outputs and case studies that evaluate the implementation and impact of industry-centric, SDG-aligned curriculum transformation within RME


Research

One of the key areas of activity is promoting research activity within the field of innovative pedagogies in RME. Each of the three Labs drives focused research initiatives:

  • i5 Lab: Investigates the effectiveness and impact of the 5-stage i5 Certification scheme and related teaching resources.
  • Innovative Pedagogies Lab: Promoting collaborative research projects that examine creative, transformative, and future-oriented pedagogical methods in RME.
  • Industry-Centric ESD Lab: Focuses on embedding SDG-aligned outcomes, industry relevance, and measurable impact in curricula. Research includes evaluation of applied projects, outcome-based assessment frameworks, and curriculum transformation initiatives.

Engagement Opportunities

The Working Group brings together researchers, educators and practitioners to share context-specific experiences and practices, and exchange about what it means for RME locally and globally. Engagement opportunities across the Labs include:

  • Regular Meetings and Sharing Sessions: Each Lab hosts recurring sessions for discussion, reflection, and exchange of practices.
  • Professional Development Workshops: Online and in-person workshops support faculty in applying innovative pedagogical methods, curriculum transformation, and industry-aligned learning.
  • "Doing Pedagogic Research” Sessions: Collaborative workshops where members co-create research approaches and explore evidence-based practices.
  • Networking and Collaboration: Members can participate in cross-Lab initiatives, co-author publications, and engage in international partnerships to advance RME practice globally.
  • Global Community Building: The Labs provide ongoing support and connection across disciplines, regions, and sectors to facilitate peer-to-peer learning and innovation.

Resource Development

One of the key areas of activity is the co-creation of resources and toolkits under each of the 3 Labs:

i5 Lab: Teaching guides, i5 Certification framework materials, and curated resources for responsible leadership pedagogy. This also may include blogs, opinion pieces, chapters, and conference papers.

Innovative Pedagogies Lab: Case studies, lesson plans, and co-created frameworks for creative and transformative teaching methods in RME.

Industry-Centric ESD Lab: Curriculum mapping guides, outcome-based assessment tools, industry engagement frameworks, and practical toolkits to embed SDG-aligned learning in programs.

Stay tuned for additional resources to be uploaded in the resources tab!

Co-Chairs

Lab 1 Co-Leads: PRME Impactful Five (i5) Innovative Pedagogies for Responsible Leadership

Natascha Radclyffe-Thomas, Ravensbourne University London, UK

n.radclyffe-thomas@rave.ac.uk

Christian van Buskirk, University of Victoria, Canada
cvanbus@uvic.ca

Lab 2 Lead: Innovative Pedagogies in Responsible Management Education

Konstantina Skritsovali, Liverpool John Moores University, UK

k.skritsovali@ljmu.ac.uk

Lab 3 Lead: Industry-Centric Education for Sustainable Development

Bilal Sarwar, Balochistan University of Information Technology, Engineering and Management Sciences, Pakistan

bilal.sarwar@buitms.edu.pk

Steering Committee Members

Craig Anderson, University of Stirling, UK

David Anderson, Lincoln International Business School, University of Lincoln, UK

Tim Breitbarth, DACH chapter, Germany

Claire May, University of Lincoln, UK

Toloue Miandar, University of Bologna, Italy

Dirk Moosmayer, Kedge Business School, France

Samuel Petros Sebhatu, Karlstad University, Sweden

Maria Pietrzak, SGH Warsaw School of Economics, Poland

Please fill out the form here to join the Working Group.

Working Group Outputs

Playbook

The Impactful Five (i5) Playbook (and translations)

The PRME i5 Playbook for pedagogical development: Transforming Business Education with Impactful Methods and its translations is specifically designed to enhance teaching practices that inspire the fields of business education, responsible management education (RME), leadership education, sustainable development, and more. The Playbook offers a wealth of practical strategies for classroom engagement, examples of activities, and insights to help educators enhance their teaching methodologies and foster a dynamic learning environment for their students. Working Group members contributed to the development of i5 resources.

Explore the i5 Resources>

Anti Corruption in Management Education Curriculum Speed Draw Video 2

Creative teaching methods for achieving responsible management: Educating the next generation of business leaders

Members of the Working Group supported this special issue of the International Journal of Management Education. This special issue explores pedagogical innovation for the development of responsible management skills among students and professionals as well as educators. Impact and effectiveness of such innovation could include the development of cognitive, behavioral and/or personal competence development. Sustainable development is an interdisciplinary issue that connects business with the sciences, social sciences, and humanities. This issue strongly encouraged views that go beyond traditional business school pedagogies and are explicit in supporting the holistic nature of the SDGs.

Explore the output>

Anti Corruption in Management Education Curriculum Speed Draw Video 3

"A great adventure in both teaching and learning" – Teacher identity and innovative responsible management education pedagogies in Business Schools

This self-reference case study reports on applying teacher identity as a lens to examine the intentions and experiences of a group of business school pedagogy experts convened from the eight European regional chapters of PRME to support the Impactful Five (i5) project as an Expert Pedagogy Group (ExPeG).

Explore the output>

Natascha Radclyffe-Thomas, Marina Schmitz, Tim Breitbarth, Toloue Miandar, Maria Pietrzak, Samuel Petros Sebhatu, Ana Simaens, "A great adventure in both teaching and learning" – Teacher identity and innovative responsible management education pedagogies in Business Schools, The International Journal of Management Education, Volume 23, Issue 3, 2025, 101142, ISSN 1472-8117, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijme...

Recommended Resources

Innovative RME Teaching Resources from the PRME UK & Ireland Chapter

This annual initiative celebrates the outstanding teaching practices aligned with the Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME). It aims to identify and showcase pedagogical innovations that advance sustainability, ethics, and responsible leadership in business and management education.

Explore the resource>

The DICE Cafe

This resource provides a record of playful activities within Lincoln Business School, UK.

Explore the resource>

RE:PLAY

Researching the Effectiveness of Playful Learning in Higher Education (RE:PLAY) is a three-year ESRC-funded project that aims to explore how playful approaches to teaching and learning are currently being used in UK higher education and evidence what works, and why.

Explore the resource>

No events found