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Impact & Investing Hub

The Impact & Investing Hub is devoted to providing (future) leaders and managers of financial and investment organizations with strategic and organizational knowledge and skills to successfully shape long-term sustainability changes concretely, in daily practice.

Our mission is to provide both the scholarly community as well as investment organizations and their leadership research-based knowledge to make meaningful contributions to a sustainable society and mobilize our expertise and research to help us get there. We focus on interdisciplinary, collaborative, and impactful research, and be recognized as a thought leader in research on long-term and sustainable business practices in and around investment organizations.

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Research Projects

We collaborate with institutional investors, non-governmental organizations and governments to advance knowledge about how businesses and societal stakeholders can meaningfully contribute to the most pressing social, ecological and ethical challenges of our time.

The possible transformations of ways of working, doing business and investing have far-reaching consequences. However, the actual implementations so far have led to limited changes in decision-making, investment allocations, or the proportion of impact investments.

These transformations are covered by our research themes:

  • Evolution of sustainability transformation
  • Investment models of institutional investors
  • (Financial) decision-making by boards
  • Revenue models in the financial sector
  • Development of organizational models, management structures, and leadership in the financial sector

The political and regulatory uncertainties accompanying these transformations, limiting board culture and behavior, and a financial and investment sector that is just beginning to understand how to capitalize on these transformations; together they form hurdles that society need to overcome. Therefore, our projects are driven by a collaborative spirit aimed at advancing research, as well as overcoming these hurdles to generate practical impact.

We closely cooperate with private and public organizations and institutions, in our research as well as our teaching. This keeps us at the forefront of business and management practice. Our students thereby gain strategic and organizational insight and can use their leadership skills to design and implement optimal business choices and investment strategies.

Our projects

Learn more about Impact & Investing Hub

  • Get involved with us

    Students

    As part of the School’s Executive Education, we are surrounded by talented students who are motivated to support our work. Our members teach in different courses in the Bachelor, Master and post-initial programs.

    We also supervise Bachelor and Master theses and encourage students in the respective programs to start their thesis projects with us.


    Researchers

    The Impact & Investing Hub is a thought leader in academic debates about the role of financial and investment organizations in society, and how to conduct research with strong societal impact to support their change. Our research regularly appears both in renowned journals of our field and management books. In this manner, we actively bridge academic debates and management practices for institutional investor leadership.

    We invite researchers at any level to collaborate with us, for instance by coming to Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam for a research visit. If you are interested in staying with us for a longer or shorter period of time, write us at c.g.koedijk@vu.nl or get in touch directly with one of our people.

    We are also actively involved in organizing various conferences, workshops and seminars open to external participants. We typically announce them widely through our Lab’s Linkedin profile. Stay tuned!


    Journalists

    Our scholars frequently write about their research in popular media and other non-academic outlets. Engage with us for interviews about our opinion on important societal issues and the state-of-the-art research and insights.

    Contact us at c.g.koedijk@vu.nl or engage directly with our people.


    Companies

    Our scholars support financial and investment organizations with their expertise in achieving societal impact and help to create momentum around topics like investment governance, corporate social responsibility, sustainability and impact investing. Find out what we are already doing in our projects overview.

    Engage with us to initiate applied research projects, develop case studies and disseminate best practices to industry peers.

    Get in touch with our scholars to discuss opportunities for collaboration by contacting them directly or write us at c.g.koedijk@vu.nl.

  • Our mission and vision

    The Impact & Investing Lab is devoted to providing (future) leaders and managers of financial and investment organizations with strategic and organizational knowledge and skills to successfully shape sustainability changes concretely, in daily practice.

    Our mission is to provide both the scholarly community as well as investment organizations and leaders research-based knowledge to make meaningful contributions to a sustainable society, and mobilize our expertise and research to help us get there. We focus on interdisciplinary, collaborative, and impactful research, and be recognized as a thought leader in research on long-term and sustainable business practices in and around investment organizations.

    We have a broad and inclusive orientation on topics that include critical societal challenges with which financial markets, investment organizations and other contemporary business firms are confronted, such as climate change, inequality, environmental protection or ageing population. We understand the label “Impact & Investing” as an umbrella term capturing the debate about the role of financial markets and investment organizations in a sustainable society, and how this relationship informs the treatment by businesses of the social, ecological and ethical challenges that society is facing.

    We are committed to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals as a framework for action and for the promotion of sustainable business models and responsible management practices. We also aspire to play a leading role in support of the mission of the School of Business and Economics of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam to do Science with Purpose, and in doing so contribute to the overall research profile themes of our university Governance for Society and Science for Sustainability.

    We believe that bringing together stakeholders from academia, business, government and civil society is the best way to conduct research for lasting social impact.

  • Members
    • Kees Koedijk (programme director) 
    • Ronald Huisman
    • Alfred Slager
    • Bas Bosma

  • Participate

    We are active members of the scholarly community and organize frequent activities such as workshops and seminars for researchers. Wherever possible, we organize these events with platforms and other organizations to enrich the debates and increase the outreach of the optics.

    Participate with us to initiate applied research projects, develop case studies and disseminate best practices to industry peers.

    Get in touch with our scholars to discuss opportunities for collaboration by contacting them directly, or write us at c.g.koedijk@vu.nl.

Do you want more information?

Please contact us!

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
School of Business and Economics for Professionals
1081 HV AMSTERDAM

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