The oikos Executive Board explains some of oikos' goals and plans for 2016 

As a new year begins, we are also starting the implementation of our plans and goals for 2016 which have been worked on in the last months of 2015. As some of you may know, oikos as umbrella organisation, operates in triennial strategy processes. Every year the triennial strategy is revised to create the implementation plan for the current year. This is a more specific plan with adjusted responsibilities and ownerships. These especially vary as Executive Board Members change yearly.
 
The oikos strategy has one main goal, which is also the oikos mission: integrating sustainability into economics and management, more specifically in education and research. The general idea that our strategy illustrates is to: strengthen our community, focus on creating change agents, deepen cooperations, execute impactful projects (also to inspire those who may not be interested in sustainability yet) and improving our organisational capacity. The latter is an objective for every responsible organisation, which always wishes to improve.

When it comes to the year 2016, we of course will be organising around 200 projects in our chapters again. Our members will be dedicating their time and energies to pursue our mission and will keep improving themselves, as well as their work. In order to support and encourage our community, the oikos international team, sets three important goals. The first is to develop change agents. This goal includes the provision of activities such as oikos LEAP, the Learning Circles, the Regional Meetings, the improvement of the alumni network, etc. Each of these contributes, not exclusively, to the first goal and brings forth our mission. The second is to reach and inspire further students and faculty to take action. Under this goal are programmes such as the Theses Hub, the oikos Academies, the oikos Winter School, etc. Each of these often allows both the first goal to be achieved and the second goal. The third is the advancement of our organisational capacity. As mentioned above, this is a crucial goal to support our community and achieve our impact. Under this goal are HR, technical and evaluation criteria.

The oikos community is regularly updated via their respective Executive Board Member, or at Legislative Meetings, on the proceedings of the strategy. Other than the overall goals laid out above, the each Executive Board Member also has more specific goals that form their ownership, parallel to their support of a chapter region. More information on what the EB does can be found here.

As an organisation which strives to be inclusive, transparent and overall responsible we always attempt to improve and always welcome suggestions or more impactful ideas. We look forward to continue making a difference with many more change agents in 2016, so don’t forget to join our journey and make the difference!