C ardiff Business School’s public value strategy was launched at a dedicated event in October 2014, emerging from the synergistic combination of two antecedents. One of these was the growing body of work on the role and purpose of public institutions that needed to demonstrate their social legitimacy. This resulted in the core notion of public value, but the implicit normative values of many staff at the school were also a key factor. These values were fundamentally social, emergent and democratic in character, but lacked formal institutional expression, so individuals at school leadership level set about curating these values into a series of statements around what public value meant to us, along with principles to guide how those values could be realised. Grand challenges & school integration The result was a unique and powerful force within the school, underpinned by enormous staff commitment and support because it was created by us and for us. This force for public value was later crowd-sourced
by the school’s former deputy dean, Calvin Jones and distilled into the following five grand challenges: • Fair and sustainable economies • Good governance • Responsible innovation • Decent work • Future organisations There was resonance with the government’s Wellbeing of Future Generations of Wales Act and the United Nations’ sustainable development goals, both of which came into being in 2015. Overall, there was a sense that the world needed stronger guidance on achieving sustainability and the school’s grand challenges reflected the urgency and optimism of that time. Indeed, these challenges were always more than a guide to teaching or research; they were intended to pervade all our activities and relationships, for both academics and professional services. In this way, the public value strategy matured into an ethos. Public value is a living entity, constantly reshaping and enriching itself because staff are empowered to create and co-create its meaning and actualisation. While mindful of academic freedom, the process of broadening and deepening public value was progressively introduced into every aspect of school life over which we had some control, as well as in innovations or initiatives that reinforced its message.
20 Business Impact • ISSUE 2 • 2026
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