Imperial recognised for Corporate Social Responsibility by Financial Times

Imperial is one of the world’s leading business schools for teaching corporate social responsibility according to the Financial Times.

Imperial is ranked 7^th globally and 2^nd position in the UK for Corporate Social Responsibility in the rankings, which this year included a ranking for CSR for the first time. Imperial made a significant move up in the overall rankings table, securing the 39^th spot globally, up twelve places on last year’s ranking. 

The school has also been recognised for its international reach, ranking 2^nd in the UK for international course experience, and has scored highly for diversity, sitting within the global top five for female representation at board level and ranked 1^st position for the variety of languages spoken amongst the MBA student community.

"As the world’s industries are tasked with ensuring their activities benefit society as well as themselves, business schools must ensure that the education they offer looks beyond financial gain." Professor Francisco Veloso Dean of Imperial College Business School

The results reflect a long-held and dedicated effort by the school and the wider College to improve the relationship between academia and modern business practice and to encourage social transformation.

Professor Francisco Veloso, Dean of Imperial College Business School said: “As the world’s industries are tasked with ensuring their activities benefit society as well as themselves, business schools must ensure that the education they offer looks beyond financial gain. Our students come from all over the world, with different experiences, perspectives and varied career goals. However, they are uniformly committed, not just to becoming commercially successful, but to establishing careers in which they can give back to the societies they live in.  

“We have worked to ensure our programmes continue to meet the changing demands of employers and future business leaders. For our MBA programme to secure such a prominent position for our CSR commitment in the Financial Times’ ranking is a testament to our efforts.”

Alongside its programmes, Imperial College Business School is home to a number of CSR focused initiatives. The Gandhi Centre for Inclusive Innovation, which launched in December 2007, helps companies across the globe to enhance their innovative capabilities and share the rewards with society.

The Centre runs a yearly Ideas to Impact Challenge, in which teams of students are tasked with devising solutions to some of the world’s most pressing social challenges in sectors including financial inclusion, agriculture, education and skills, digital, water and energy. The top three winning teams receive start-up funds, mentoring and business support from experts at Imperial College London in order to turn their ideas into reality.