Acting to transform: strengthening the Sustainable Impact Projects (SIP) initiative
For the start of the 2024-2025 academic year, EDHEC Business School has restructured the Sustainable Impact Projects (SIP) for first-year students on the EDHEC International BBA programme in Lille and Nice. These association-based projects focus on issues linked to the 17 Sustainable Development Goals defined by the United Nations, such as health and well-being, education and gender equality. This initiative is one of the highlights of the ‘transformative journey’, the new orientation of the student pathway developed as part of the 2024-2028 Generations 2050 strategic plan.
The first new feature was an online quiz for first-year BBA students to introduce them to the various Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Digital badges are awarded for each goal achieved. ‘This quiz is not just a learning tool, it's a starting point for encouraging students to think about the SDGs, developing their critical thinking and awakening their sense of commitment to their project’, stresses the team coordinating the Lille and Nice SIPs.
A new form of governance has also been introduced: the projects in the same cohort are attached to a central association. This framework is designed to optimise the search for partners and encourage the sharing of internal best practice, particularly in terms of project management, event organisation and communication plans.
Finally, a team of tutors accompanies the students during synchronous and asynchronous sessions, helping them to achieve their learning objectives. These weekly project management activities are based on first-year courses such as law, negotiation, marketing, communication and accounting. The aim is to create synergy between the first-year courses and the SIPs. ‘Prioritising the group's activities, managing cash flow, understanding the Association's legal issues, marketing a project - all these assignments carried out during the SIPs are a concrete application of the skills acquired during the first year of the BBA’, explains the team coordinating the Lille and Nice SIPs.
