ABIS Knowledge Into Action Forum & General Assembly 2017

Date 10-11 May 2017

Host ABIS - The Academy of Business in Society

Venue Management Centre Europe, Brussels

Focus Connecting our Network to identify exciting Project Opportunities

Theme

On 10-11 May 2017, ABIS hosted its Annual General Assembly & Knowledge Into Action Forum in Brussels, Belgium.

The Knowledge Into Action Forum serves as the main physical meeting point for the ABIS network to come together and discuss new ideas for collaboration at different stages of development.This year, the Forum was designed to help the ABIS network to:

Contribute to the EU’s research and innovation agenda as a business-academic network;
Gain insights on knowledge transfer between academia and business
Create possibilities to start international projects with other members of the network.

At the event, participants gained a precise understanding of the European Union Research and Innovation agenda and how they can contribute to it. In addition, practitioners and academics provided their insights on business-academic collaboration. Finally, members had the possibility to create new connections, get the chance to present their project proposals and join new collaboration opportunities across and beyond Europe.

It is our joint ambition to continue the great work from 2016, where last year’s Knowledge Into Action Forum up until now ignited projects worth EUR 11+ million in EU funding.

The afternoon before, we also hosted our Annual General Assembly which marks the network’s yearly gathering, in which the management presented headlines and achievements from the previous year and outlined the priorities, milestones and engagement opportunities for the upcoming months. In the evening of the 10th, ABIS afterward provided the opportunity to join the networking dinner at the conference venue.

Speakers

David Grayson Director, The Doughty Centre for Corporate Responsibility Sustainability

David Grayson

Background

David joined Cranfield as director of the new Doughty Centre for Corporate Responsibility in April 2007, after a thirty year career as a social entrepreneur and campaigner for responsible business, diversity, and small business development. This included founding Project North East which has now worked in more than 60 countries around the world; being the founding CEO of the Prince's Youth Business Trust and serving as a joint managing-director of Business in the Community.

David has an Honorary Doctorate of Law from London South Bank University and was a visiting Senior Fellow at the CSR Initiative of the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard (2005-10);

He has served on various charity and public sector boards over the past 20 plus years. These have included the boards of the National Co-operative Development Agency, The Prince of Wales' Innovation Trust and the Strategic Rail Authority.

He chaired the National Disability Council and the Business Link Accreditation Board; in each case appointed by the Major Government and re-appointed by the Blair administration.

He is currently chairman of the national charity Carers UK championing the role of 6.5million Britons caring for a loved one; and is a former chairman of one of the UK's larger social enterprises and largest eldercare providers, Housing 21(www.housing21.co.uk) during which the organisation made corporate history by becoming the first-ever not-for-profit successfully to acquire a publicly quoted group of companies. David received an OBE for services to industry in 1994 and a CBE for services to disability in 1999.

The Guardian has recently named David as one of the top ten tweeters on sustainable leadership alongside Al Gore, Tim Cook - CEO of Apple, Sheryl Sandberg - Fasebook's COO and Kumi Naidoo - the Heed of Greenpeace International @DoughyDavidG.

Current activities

Social entrepreneur and campaigner for responsible business, diversity, and small business development.

He speaks, writes and advises regularly on business, society, entrepreneurialism, and future trends for businesses, media and business schools around the world. He has worked with many, leading global businesses including BP, Shell, Microsoft and Diageo. He has worked with international institutions such as the OECD, the European Union, and the World Bank. He is a regular key-note speaker for business conferences internationally.

He is a regular contributor to, columnist and editorial advisory board member for the Guardian Sustainable Business Blog and The Ethical Corporation (www.ethicalcorp.com). He sits on the Corporate Responsibility stakeholder advisory group for Camelot.

His books include: "Everybody's Business" (2001) and "Corporate Social Opportunity: Seven Steps to make Corporate Social Responsibility work for your business" (2004) - both co-authored with Adrian Hodges; "Corporate Responsibility Coalitions: The Past, Present, and Future of Alliances for Sustainable Capitalism" co-authored with Jane Nelson, published by Greenleaf Publishing and Stanford University Press (2013); and "Social Intrapreneurism & all that Jazz (2014) co-authored with Melody McLaren and Heiko Spitzeck. He has also contributed to several other books including "The Accountable Corporation" and "What if?".

David has an Honorary doctorate of Laws from London South Bank University; and was a visiting senior fellow at the CSR Initiative of the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University (2005-10), and variously a Visiting Fellow at several UK and American business schools.

Ivo Matser CEO of ISM University of Management and Economics & Dean of ISM Executive School

Jean-Pierre Helfer Dean of Faculty, Ecole de Commerce de Paris

Kurt Vandenberghe Director for Policy Development and Coordination, Directorate-General for Research and Innovation, European Commission

Michel Bande Senior Executive Vice President, Solvay S.A.

Patrizia Toia Member of the European Parliament, Vice-chair of the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy

Roberto Saracco President and Node Director of European Institute for Innovation and Technology (EIT) Italy

Roberto Saracco

Roberto Saracco is the President of EIT Italy and Node Director of EIT Italy based in Trento (European Institute for Innovation and Technology).

Up to December 2011 he was the Director of the Future Centre in Venice, responsible for innovative telecommunications architectures and scientific communications reporting directly to the Strategy Officer of Telecom Italia.

In 2001 he became director of the Future Centre, a research centre focusing on the economic impact of innovations in the telecommunications area. During 1999 and 2000, Roberto proposed and delivered a World Bank project in the InfoDev framework to speed entrepreneurship in Latin American countries, and prior, 1999 and 2000, he proposed and carried out a World Bank project in the InfoDev framework to foster entrepreneurship in Latin America countries.

Roberto chaired the Visionary Group (1996-1997) on Super Intelligent Networks to steer the cooperative research at the European Union (EU) level beyond the year 2000. He has recently served as member of the Internet 2020 Strategy Group and European Research Network (GEANT) expert group. In 1994 he launched the Marketing & Communications area in CSELT, ensuring dissemination of innovation.
In the eighties, Roberto led research in Telecommunications Management in CSELT, and actively participated in standardization activities at CCITT, in the area of formal description techniques. Prior this role, he was involved in software design for the first Italian SPC systems.

He is a senior member of IEEE, that he joined over 20 years ago. In the last 15 years he has held several leading roles and conducted a number of DLTs and DSPs. Currently he is the Director of the Sister and Related Societies of COMSOC.

He has published over 100 papers in journals and magazines, six books ¬ including “The Disappearance of Telecommunications”, which was published in the USA by IEEE press, and several articles in the scientific section of daily newspapers. He has also delivered speeches and keynotes at many international conferences.

At several stages in his career, Roberto has taught at Universities in Italy and around the world on the subject of Telecommunications, and most recently, on the New Economy.

Ulrich Hommel Director of the Quality Services Department at EFMD and Director of Business School Development at EFMD Global Network

Ulrich Hommel

Ulrich Hommel is Director of the Quality Services Department at EFMD and Director of Business School Development at EFMD Global Network. He has been working for Quality Services since 2007 and has been instrumental in the establishment of the EFMD Programme Accreditation System (EPAS). In the past, he was also the Director of EFMD’s Research & Surveys Unit and, in this role, has created the Annual EFMD Higher Education Research Conference.

Ulrich Hommel is a Professor of Finance at EBS Business School and heads the Chair of Corporate Finance & Higher Education Finance. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and has been awarded the Habilitation in Business Administration at the WHU, Germany. His current research focuses mainly on corporate risk management, venture capital & private equity as well as higher education management and financing. He has published more than 100 journal articles, books, edited volumes and contributions to edited works including articles in Entrepreneurship Theory & Practice, Journal of Business Research, Annals of Operations Research, Venture Capital, Journal of Business Economics and the Journal of International Entrepreneurship.

Before joining EBS, he was an Assistant Professor of Finance at the WHU from 1994 to 1999. Ulrich Hommel has been Dean of EBS from 2000 to 2002 and has subsequently held the position of Rector and Managing Director from 2003 to 2006. In the past, he has held visiting appointments at Stockholm Business School (Stockholm University), the Stephen M. Ross School of Business (University of Michigan), the Krannert School of Management (Purdue University) and Bordeaux Business School.

Ulrich Hommel has published widely in the areas of real options analysis, corporate risk management, corporate restructuring, family business financing as well as venture capital financing. In the past, he has held visiting appointments at Bordeaux École de Management, Krannert School of Management of Purdue University and the Stephen M. Ross School of Business of The University of Michigan.

Programme

(All times local)

Programme

10 May 2017 - Annual General Assembly & Network Dinner

17:30 - 19:00 ABIS Annual General Assembly

19:00 - 20:30 Free Networking Dinner

11 May 2017 - Knowledge Into Action Forum

08:45 – 09:15 Registration & Welcome Coffee

09:15 – 09:30 Introduction – Research and Innovation for ABIS Network: the 2016 achievements

09:30 – 10:15 How can the ABIS Network support EU Research & Innovation Priorities?

A high-level panel of EU, academic and business representatives will discuss the latest insights and developments regarding Horizon 2020 and its Work Programmes. On one hand, this session will provide participants with an overview of the latest developments and vision for the final stretch of Horizon 2020 and beyond. On the other, we will also discuss how ABIS in its unique position as a business-academic network can best contribute to the goals Europe has set for itself to create a positive impact on business and society.

Chair:

Ulrich Hommel - Director of the Quality Services Department at EFMD and Director of Business School Development at EFMD Global Network

Speakers:

Kurt Vandenberghe -Director for Policy Development and Coordination, Directorate-General for Research and Innovation, European Commission
Patrizia Toia - Member of the European Parliament, Vice-chair of the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy
Roberto Saracco - President - Director, European Institute for Innovation and Technology

10:15 – 11:00 Networking Coffee Break

11:00 – 11:45 Strengthening Global Cooperation: the Case for an improved Business-Academic Partnership

Davos 2017 reasserted the necessity of global corporations to face technological, economic, environmental and societal challenges. In this panel, we will underline how business-academic cooperation can help societies to face those challenges. In this framework, we will address business strategy to build efficient partnerships and academic responses to business needs. Our panelists will describe best case scenarios, practices but also mention limits and discuss how to overcome them. The takeaways for our audience will be a clear picture of business strategy with universities and universities’ response to it, new innovative ideas on how to build strong partnerships and the way to shape those partnerships to respond to the challenges of today.

Chair:

David Grayson - Director, Doughty Cenre for Corporate Responsibility, Cranfield School of Management

Speakers:

Michel Bande - Senior Executive Vice President, Solvay S.A.
Ivo Matser - CEO of ISM University of Management
Jean-Pierre Helfer - Dean of Faculty, Ecole de Commerce de Paris

11:45 – 13:15 Networking Lunch – MCE Restaurant

13:15 – 15:15 Project Research & Innovation Marketplace

A free-flowing, member-driven, open exchange of new ideas, proposals and engagement opportunities for academic and corporate members. Following a pre-event engagement and selection process, individual members will make dynamic project pitches at a range of poster stands and tables over the course of two hours. This aims in part to solicit feedback and additional ideas from the network, but primarily to identify partners willing to engage in a collaborative development process. Non-presenters will be free to exhibit the various projects to obtain information and discuss new ideas and possibilities for further engagement.

Project Ideas

Accenture - Global Circular Economy Initiative
Copenhagen Business School - New Community Health Models
IESE - TBD
Manchester Metropolitan University - Circular Economy
Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences - INTERREG 2 SEAS - Increase the adoption of circular economy solutions among SMEs in the 2 Seas area
Solvay – The Solvay Way
University of Edinburgh - Incorporating Sustainability in Management Education: An Interdisciplinary Approach
University of Hull - Cyber Platforms Enhanced by Trust Positions
University of Manchester - Gamified health interventions
Solvay Business School VUB - Social Entrepreneurship Platform

15:15 – 15:45 Looking Forward

Providing an overview on next steps on how to further engage in the showcased projects using the ABIS Members Area.

15:45 – 16:30 Drinks Reception