At Cambridge Judge Business School, we pride ourselves in our commitment to engaging with businesses, policy-makers and civil-society organisations. We believe that knowledge can be a powerful tool to help different players to improve their practices, policies and to develop their thinking. and, in this way, to generate positive social impact. But what does it mean “to engage” for a business school? And how can we keep on engaging as we all adapt to a life with physical distancing?
Undoubtedly, many of our engagement practices have changed significantly in this period. But we would like to think that the creativity required to overcome current barriers to in-person physical engagement has actually improved and strengthened our connections to our community. At every level, Cambridge Judge people have committed to stay in touch with our key stakeholders and have come up with successful engagement initiatives.
Here are just some examples of the many ways in which our faculty and research centres have been able to keep on engaging with students, alumni, and organisations, even as we have been working from home and adjusting to a new normal.
- Dr Simon Taylor, Faculty (Professor-level) in Management Practice (Finance) has published regular posts on his blog addressing topics such as the financial impact of the pandemic or the problems of labelling coronavirus the “Chinese virus”. More broadly, the blog features pieces easily accessible for all audiences on various topics ranging from global finance and macroeconomic policies to music and society.
- Professor Elroy Dimson, Research Director within the Finance group, has delivered a webinar on “Financial Market History and COVID” hosted by the CFA Institute on Wednesday 6 May 2020. The webinar was an opportunity for researchers, businesses and people interested in financial markets to understand how the current market volatility relates to previous shocks and what investors might anticipate based on these.
- The Centre for Risk Studies has kept communicating with businesses through its Cambridge Business Risk Hub. The hub allows registered businesses to access the latest information on business risks and their potential impact based on peer assessments, research, and the latest scenarios developed by the Centre.
- Dr Timur Alexandrov and Dr Helen Haugh from the Cambridge Centre for Social Innovation, with the contribution of Geoffrey Hunter (Head of Church Buildings and Pastoral), have shared insights from the REACH Ely project (Reimagining Churches as Community Assets for the Common Good) through a podcast. The podcast covered the project’s aims, progress, challenges that churches in smaller communities are facing, and future implications. It was also accompanied by a blog post discussing how church communities are copying with the COVID-19 pandemic.
- The Alumni & External Engagement Team and Executive Education has launched a new video series, CJBS Perspectives: Leadership in Unprecedented Times. CJBS Perspectives is a series of talks and presentations from exceptional leaders, faculty and alumni, born of the challenging times in which we currently find ourselves. The first four titles feature Cambridge Judge Business School’s Director, Christoph Loch, Lord Bilimoria, Lord Browne and Professor Dame Carol Black who are interviewed by CJBS faculty.
- More recently, the Corporate Communications and Marketing team has created the “What’s Next? How to Survive and Thrive in a Post-COVID-19 World” webinar series, featuring faculty insight and analysis that can help individuals, organisations and society make sense and respond to the current situation.
As a business school, keeping connected to our community is important. Upcoming webinars can be found on CJBS’s events webpage while recent blog posts can be found on our homepage.