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The hotel company and the business school have been working together on academic projects related to social responsibility since 2017
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ESCP Business School helped RIU create the RIU Method, the work methodology that forms the basis of the company’s social and environmental investment
Palma de Mallorca, May 4, 2022. After five years of collaboration, ESCP Business School’s Madrid Campus and RIU Hotels & Resorts have signed a professorship agreement to design and develop projects in the field of Corporate Social Responsibility. Over the course of a year, both entities will carry out joint applied academic research, knowledge transfer, outreach, teaching and innovation activities related to CSR.
With this professorship, both entities have created a privileged space for reflection and to share ideas. This will allow the company to pass on its know-how, develop its corporate brand and support research and teaching in certain fields of its activity and professions. The research programmes, which will be examined by a scientific committee, involve students and researchers from the ESCP Business School, as well as researchers from other academic institutions.
This collaboration’s first line of work is focused on building and designing knowledge dissemination, collection and learning communities to help carry out studies related to hotel CSR, with a particular focus on social return and the impact of CSR investment on social or nearby communities. The second line of work will be based on academic consultancy missions to complement, improve, consolidate and standardise CSR initiatives that have been previously carried out.
“We are delighted to have signed this agreement with RIU to continue jointly developing applied projects that contribute towards sustainability and social investment in the hotel industry, thereby passing on the results of our collaboration to society”, stated Lola Herrero, Associate Professor at the ESCP Business School and Scientific Director of the Jean-Baptiste Say Institute, who leads the professorship.
Catalina Alemany, director of the Social Responsibility area at RIU Hotels added that “after the long path we have travelled alongside ESCP Business School, we want to formalise this joint adventure and make it official in order to define the new challenges and paths we will face, based on the systematic foundations provided by applied academic research”.
As an example of this joint work, the representative of both entities took part in the Sustainable Destinations Summit organised by the World Tourism Organization in Mallorca, where participants shared the best environmental, social and economical sustainability practices established worldwide by the organisations and companies leading these initiatives. Catalina Alemany and Lola Herrero took part in the round table on human development, where they presented the RIU method for social innovation as the corporate strategy of RIU Hotels.
About ESCP Business School
ESCP Business School was founded in 1819. The School has chosen to teach responsible leadership, open to the world and based on European multiculturalism. Six campuses in Berlin, London, Madrid, Paris, Turin and Warsaw and a branch campus in Dubaï are the stepping-stones that allow students to experience this European approach to management. Several generations of entrepreneurs and managers were thus trained in the firm belief that the business world may feed society in a positive way. This conviction and ESCP’s values – excellence, singularity, creativity and plurality – daily guide our mission and build its pedagogical vision. Every year, ESCP welcomes 8000 students and 5000 managers from 122 different nationalities. Its strength lies in its many business training programmes, both general and specialised (Bachelor, Master, MBA, Executive MBA, PhD and Executive Education), all of which include a multi-campus experience.