Update: our lobbying and other developments

It has been a busy start to the year with the submission deadline for the Green paper responses and the opening of consultation on the REF, otherwise known as the Stern Review. I am very grateful for those who helped in forming the Chartered ABS response to the Green paper and we will again be looking for your input to the Stern review. Business schools vary in mission, vision and history and we are keen to reflect the collective view and not just the views of a few, so please make sure you let me know your thoughts.

We also continue to represent our members in one-to-one meetings and in the last month or so we have held productive meetings with the UK India Business Council, the China Britain Business Council, UKTI, the Home Office, Jo Johnson’s Special Adviser, and Barry Sheerman MP, who is the Chair of the APPG on Management. In all cases we have stressed the high proportion of university students who study in our business schools, the value of international students in both educational and economic terms, the role research from business schools has to play in securing a more productive nation, reiterating the STEM+M argument, and the work of the Small Business Charter.

It is clear the impact case studies we publish on our website provide an important example of why such research should be supported and there is a great deal of interest building in the work of our Delivering Value Taskforce, which will publish its recommendations later this year. Some of the people we have met have been surprised at just how much our business schools do and we will continue to spread the word as widely as possible, with your help.

We have been invited by UKTI to join a delegation to China; Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. The trip will take place in March and if there are any particular areas of interest or concern I would be grateful if you could get in touch.

On the Small Business Charter, some of you will be aware that Ian McNaught has stood down from the Executive Director role to join Scotland Excel. We thank Ian for the work he did while with the SBC. In the interim I will be the Executive Director and Meenal Datar will continue to manage the main tasks and we are very grateful to Meenal for all she does in ensuring the success of the SBC. We will also be appointing a new Chair by the end of this month.

Anne Kiem
Chief Executive

4th February 2016