Education

Transparency International Belgium and the CEMS

What is CEMS?

Since 2017, Transparency International Belgium has been involved with students on the CEMS master’s in international management.  

Involving more than 33 prestigious management schools, this master’s programme takes place in several partner universities around the world. In the second year, students have to prepare a business project with a partner company or NGO in order to validate their academic achievements. It is in this context that Transparency International Belgium has become a partner of the Louvain School of Management.  

  

Why Transparency International Belgium is a partner?

Education is one of the pillars of our 2025-2029 strategy. We are convinced that it is the younger generations who will contribute to a fairer world, free from corruption. This is why we are working with university students to raise awareness of governance issues among tomorrow’s leaders. At the same time, we are convinced that it is by exchanging ideas with the younger generation that we will learn new ways of thinking and a new perspective on the integrity issues facing us today. 

For one semester, the members of Transparency International Belgium’s Board of Directors supervise a group of students (between 3 and 5 young people) and support them in a research project that aims to be implemented in the business world.  

What projects have been carried out in partnerships with TI Belgium and the Louvain School of Management?
  • Term 2 -> 2016 / 2017 Business project theme « Speak-up !” 
  • Term 2 -> 2017 / 2018 Business Project theme “SMExport” 
  • Term 2 -> 2018 / 2019 Business Project theme “CEMS 2019 TRAC Project’ 
  • Term 2 -> 2019  / 2020 Business Project theme “ 2020 Whistleblowing”  
  • Term 2 -> 2021 / 2022 Business Project theme “ Increase Transparency within Belgian Political Parties” 
  • Term 2 -> 2024 / 2025 Business Project theme “Translating” 

Interview with Carlos Desmet, TI Belgium board member and supervisor of the CEMS project

How long have you been involved in the CEMS project as a member of TIB? 

It goes back to 2016 after I joined the Board of TI Belgium. 

I had noticed ( from discussions with the CEMS organization at Louvain School of Management ) that Transparency International headquarters was a global Partner of the CEMS programme and as such local chapters could offer  “Projects” to a team of international students. 

It was already the case in various other countries around the world and I tabled a proposal to the Board in Belgium to participate also in a CEMS project. 

The proposal was endorsed. So we had a first project during the academic year 2016/17 dedicated to building a Speak Up culture. 

Why is Transparency International Belgium involved in the CEMS project with students from UCLouvain ?

We wanted to benefit from the global Transparency International alliance with the CEMS programme, so we get access to a talented and motivated team of international students that offer us to deepen a topic that match the strategy and interest of our local  Belgian chapter. Basically we get a free consultancy from highly motivated students. 

On the other side we try to offer a very exciting and topical management project related to strategic issues ( CS3D implementation, Political parties transparency, Whistleblowing implementation, Speak-Up culture.. to name a few) , we put together a team of highly senior, committed and motivated coaches issue from our Board to support the students and we provide them through our network senior contacts in the public and private sector to allow them to execute their work.  

The combination seems to work well and the CEMS post project evaluations indicated that we  had caught the attention and interest of our students, developed their skills and interest for the values and the topics that we promote as TI Belgium and we could easily attract a team of top students to work on our projects. 

 

Is there a project that has caught your attention over the years? 

 I was deeply involved in the selection of the topics and the team of students and as such each project resonates with me.  

 

But to answer your question, I may flag the project we did in 2021/22 to measure the “Increased transparency in the Belgian political parties” where most of the Belgian parties accepted to answer our questions and our students were able to draw a picture of the level maturity of the transparency of the governance in the various political parties in Belgium and offer some recommendations for improvement.