Carlos III University and the #CEOPorLaDiversidad (#CEOforDiversity) Alliance promote an innovative Professorship on Leadership and Diversity

• The goal is the reciprocal transfer of knowledge between the University and the business worldthrough research activities, training activities and outreach initiatives that accelerate and provide greater clarity to leadership and diversity policies.
• It includes the creation of a multidisciplinary team with professionals of renowned prestige from the academic and business fields, who will contribute different perspectives and experiences.
• The Professorship in Leadership and Diversity is designed to address a strategic issue for companies, taking into account that Diversity, Equity and Inclusion policies and the commitment to inclusive leadership hold a key spot on the business agenda. 
• The Professorship will be directed by Carmen Paz-Aparicio, Professor of Business Organisation at Carlos III University.

Carlos III Universityin Madrid (UC3M) has formalized an agreement to promote the Professorship in Leadership and Diversity with the #CEOPorLaDiversidad (#CEOForDiversity) Alliance, an initiative developed by the Adecco Foundation and the CEOE Foundation, which already has the support of 91 CEOs of large companies. The agreement will promote the reciprocal transfer of knowledge between the University and the business world, through research, training and transfer and outreach initiatives related to the subject.

The agreement was signed by CEOE President Antonio Garamendi, UC3M Rector,Ángel Arias, CEOE Foundation President, Fátima Báñez, and Adecco Foundation President, Enrique Sánchez. Carmen Paz-Aparicio, professor of Business Organisation at UC3M, is in charge of the Professorship.

Win-win outcome

The Professorship is designed to address a strategic issue for companies, given that Diversity, Equity and Inclusion policies and the commitment to inclusive leadership hold a key spot on the business agenda. Thus, organisations are increasingly aware that having inclusive leaders who value and take advantage of the diversity of the workforce and all the stakeholders enables them to better understand the needs of society, making more conscious, responsible and sustainable decisions.

The added value of this initiative is the university-business collaboration. To this end, the University will promote academic research on leadership and diversity, fostering an innovative vision of equity and inclusion (fundamental aspects in the business world), while companies will have the opportunity to be closer to the knowledge-generating hub, drawing on university research to further advance on their strategies.

In this way, the implementation of this Professorship will result in a win-win outcome, with a great potential to accelerate and enhance leadership and diversity policies, amplifying results and progressing towards the proposed goals. This Professorship involves the creation of a multidisciplinary team of renowned professionals from the academic and business fields, who will contribute different perspectives and experiences.

UC3M Rector,Ángel Arias, emphasized that the creation of this Professorship allows for the development of a “tailor-made” ecosystem of interaction and collaboration between UC3M, CEOE, the CEOE Foundation and the Adecco Foundation, which will enable the deployment of a series of actions that will benefit all the institutions involved.

He also recalled that “leadership and diversity are one of the fundamental and transversal pillars of corporate strategy in today’s companies. […] The Professorship will serve as a platform to develop research activities of common interest and will promote the development of knowledge with a social impact,” he added.

Professor Carmen Paz-Aparicio thanked the signing parties for all the support and trust they have shown and pointed out that “it is a source of joy for UC3M and, of course, for me that the main entity representing companies in Spain, CEOE, shares our interest in the development and implementation of this initiative, as well as the achievement of its goals, and is committed to supporting and promoting it”.

She added that “this Professorship on Leadership and Diversity, framed within the #CEOForDiversity Alliance, is a dream come true.  It enables us to work and collaborate directly with the leaders of the most important companies in our country and constitutes an excellent platform for knowledge transfer between the university, the business world and our society”.

Gateways to progress

Meanwhile, the president of CEOE, Antonio Garamendi, stressed the importance of “continuing to make progress in creating opportunities for collaboration and in the alliance between the business world and academia, so that companies can contribute the best of themselves to society, in this case, by combining research, leadership and inclusion as gateways to progress”.

Along the same lines, the president of the CEOE Foundation, Fátima Báñez, stressed that this Professorship “is another step forward” for the Alliance and “an investment in excellence, science and talent in order to grow on the basis of rigour and ensure that this project remains at the forefront in Europe […]One more example that shows that companies think big, bringing the business and universityworlds closer for the benefit of the Spanish society”, she added.

For the president of the Adecco Foundation, Enrique Sánchez, “this initiative is an excellent opportunity to accelerate the much-needed closeness between the business world and the university. […]By bringing together the strengths of both players, we promote an environment of collaboration and mutual enrichment that will provide a more academic approach to the diversity and leadership policies that we have been proposing and developing in the Alliance since 2019, while promoting the education and training of future professionals in areas that are highly strategic and relevant for companies,” he added.

“Having 91 committed CEOs and their operational teams as part of the #CEOPforDiversity Alliance makes a great impact on this Professorship, enabling it to move forward in its goals, with support from the people who believe in diversity and strive to exercise inclusive leadership,” he added.

Research, training, and transfer of knowledge

The Leadership and Diversity Professorship will be articulated around three main lines of action: research activities, training activities, and initiatives for the transfer and sharing of the knowledge generated.

In terms of research, an ideas lab will be set up to identify strategic areas of study with the aim of fostering the drafting of reports, studies, and research papers that will lead to articles in scientific publications. In addition, the goal is to organise national and international congresses, where works focused on leadership and diversity will be presented.

On the training front, we will develop actions to train students and teachers in leadership and diversity. Moreover, we will work to improve the skills of business leaders in this field. To this end, there will be training grants for the completion of doctoral theses related to the Professorship, as well as the creation of awards for research work, postgraduate programmes and training courses for management teams and business leaders. Furthermore, among other actions, idea generation competitions will be promoted among students with the aim of improving leadership and diversity in companies.

Finally, the knowledge generated through the Professorship will be shared through conferences, round tables, press releases, media announcements, etc. In addition, the Professorship will have its own website with different profiles on social networks, which will be managed and coordinated by a grant recipient.