Fresh thinking for responsible business with Curium Solutions
Birmingham Business School’s partnership with Curium Solutions brings the latest ideas and practical insight to understanding the capabilities and requirements of leadership for responsible business.
Businesses are operating in an ever-changing landscape. The last decade alone has seen fundamental changes to how they operate thanks to national and international financial shocks, the pandemic, changing regulations, and rapid technological advances.
Birmingham-based Curium Solutions and the University Â鶹¾«Ñ¡â€™s Business School work together to help organisations navigate these challenges and opportunities sustainably, effectively, and responsibly. Curium contributes to the Business School curriculum creating unique opportunities for MBA and MSc students to apply their learning to real-life issues that, in turn, inform how Curium collaborates with their clients.
Spotlight on AI and robotic technologies
Emerging from an agreement to partner back in 2016, supporting the next generation of students and researchers has underpinned the partnership since the start. Starting with several MBA students developing insights into how AI and robotic technologies are used, and their potential impacts on the future of work.
Findings led Curium to develop a programme of activities to gather further insights from their clients about the challenges of implementing AI technologies, which helped Curium to better support their clients as they worked through the pros, cons and mindset shifts required to develop their technological capability.
We are super proud of our long-term collaborative partnership with the University Â鶹¾«Ñ¡. We are both Greater Birmingham Chamber of Commerce patrons and big advocates of this wonderful city and the opportunities that exist here. Here’s to our partnership’s tenth anniversary in 2026.
Exploring inclusive leadership
The partnership soon expanded, leading to collaborative thought leadership and events with regional business leaders, to discuss inclusive leadership and the role of diversity and disruptive technologies on effective leadership.
This expansion enabled Curium to expand their network through the Business School and better understand the cultural, organisational and leadership challenges faced when implementing AI and robotics technologies.
It also created new opportunities for Curium to be part of the , a collaboration between the City Regional Economic Development Institute (CityREDI) and the Greater Birmingham Chambers of Commerce, and to develop a commercial relationship with the Birmingham Centre for Railway Research and Education (BCRRE) to support organisational development and executive coaching.
Curium has become a key partner for Birmingham Business School, supporting research funding bids and graduate employability, and enhancing the curriculum to ensure Business School graduates have the right combination of knowledge and skills to support and enhance socially responsible businesses.
This has included Curium hosting a post-study internship, as part of a scheme unique to Birmingham Business School, where postgraduate students gain a paid work placement immediately after completing their studies, which has led to a for Curium. Curium is the 2025 industry partner for the MBA module on purposeful leadership, focusing on the impact of generative AI and the leadership capabilities needed to manage this successfully. Curium delivered coaching and masterclasses to support the students’ professional development on the assignment, who in turn presented their findings and solutions back to them.
Only through engaging directly with businesses can we translate our research and teaching into action and embed responsible business practices into business as usual. Our partnership with Curium has been fruitful and as we look ahead to the next decade of collaboration, we cannot wait to discover what we can achieve together on key business issues linked to work time reduction and workplace inclusivity.
