What Are Business School Leaders Focusing on in 2026?

Business school deans across Europe are focusing on three core priorities in 2026: integrating AI in ways that strengthen human capabilities, building collaborative ecosystems rather than operating in isolation, and demonstrating measurable institutional impact through data-driven decision-making.

These priorities reflect broader shifts in higher education, where digital transformation, geopolitical uncertainty, and rising student expectations are forcing institutions to rethink how they manage the student lifecycle, measure outcomes, and create value across recruitment, admissions, and enrolment.

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What Are the Top Strategic Priorities for Business Schools in 2026?

The three dominant priorities emerging from business school leadership in 2026 are responsible AI integration, ecosystem collaboration, and demonstrable impact.

Responsible AI integration means teaching students and staff to use AI as a tool that amplifies critical thinking, creativity, and ethical judgement rather than replacing human capabilities. This includes embedding AI fluency across the curriculum whilst strengthening distinctly human skills that employers value.

Ecosystem collaboration involves moving away from institutional self-sufficiency toward strategic partnerships, shared platforms, and joint initiatives. Schools are seeking technology solutions that integrate with existing CRM infrastructure and student information systems rather than requiring wholesale replacement.

Demonstrable impact requires shifting from describing institutional value to proving it through specific, measurable outcomes in graduate employment, student retention, and research influence. This demands investment in data infrastructure, learning analytics, and real-time reporting across the entire student journey.

These priorities are interconnected. AI integration requires collaboration (few schools can build AI capabilities alone), and demonstrating impact requires the unified data architecture that modern, cloud-native platforms provide.

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How Are Business Schools Approaching AI in Higher Education?

Business schools are treating AI as a capability builder rather than a replacement for human skills. The focus is on teaching students to work alongside AI tools whilst developing judgement about when human insight should take precedence.

• Curriculum integration is central to this approach. AI fluency is being embedded across programmes rather than taught as a standalone module. Students encounter AI applications in strategy, finance, marketing, and operations courses, learning context-specific uses rather than generic technical skills.
• Faculty development matters just as much. Schools are investing in professional development programmes that give academic and professional staff time and support to experiment with AI tools. Mandating adoption without adequate change management support has proven ineffective.
• Ethical frameworks are being emphasised alongside technical competence. Students learn to recognise AI limitations, identify potential biases, and make judgement calls about appropriate applications in admissions workflows, student engagement, and administrative processes.
• Human skill reinforcement is happening in parallel. Alongside AI training, schools are doubling down on distinctly human capabilities: leadership, cultural agility, collaborative problem-solving, and independent reasoning. These skills become more valuable, not less, as AI handles routine cognitive tasks.

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Why Are Business Schools Prioritising Digital Transformation and Integration?

The shift toward collaboration reflects recognition that current challenges in higher education, including enrolment management complexity, student lifecycle management, and compliance requirements, exceed what individual institutions can address with fragmented systems.

Academic partnerships are evolving beyond traditional exchange agreements. Schools with aligned strategic priorities are forming operational ecosystems focused on shared research agendas, joint programme delivery, and collective impact initiatives that benefit the entire sector.

Technology platform preferences have shifted decisively. The appetite for bespoke, multi-year implementations has declined. Schools increasingly want higher education CRM solutions and student information systems that integrate with existing infrastructure and deliver faster time-to-value rather than requiring rip-and-replace approaches.

The emphasis is on composable, API-first architectures that connect admissions software, learning management systems, and student records without creating new data silos. Bidirectional sync with enterprise CRMs like Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics, and HubSpot is becoming a baseline expectation rather than a differentiator.

Corporate engagement is deepening. Employer relationships are evolving from transactional (you hire our graduates) toward co-creation of programmes, research priorities, and career pathways. Schools and employers are recognising mutual benefit in collaboration that improves graduate employability and workforce readiness.

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How Are Business Schools Measuring Student Success and Institutional Impact?

Pressure to demonstrate impact comes from multiple directions: accreditation bodies expect clearer outcome evidence, prospective students want proof that programmes deliver on promises, employers want graduates who perform, and governments want accountability for public investment in higher education.

Schools are setting specific targets rather than making vague commitments to excellence. Institutions are defining measurable goals for graduate employment rates, salary progression, student retention, application-to-enrolment conversion, and research citations.

Outcome tracking through learning analytics is becoming systematic. Investment in data infrastructure allows schools to monitor student progress against targets and identify where interventions are needed. This requires integration across recruitment, admissions management, student records, and alumni relations systems into a unified view of the student journey.

Evidence-based communication provides competitive advantage. When everyone makes similar claims about transformation and career success, concrete evidence differentiates. Schools that can demonstrate outcomes through real-time dashboards and pipeline visibility stand out to prospective students researching programmes.

Activities are being aligned with metrics across the student lifecycle. Knowing what will be measured shapes behaviour. Schools are examining whether their recruitment strategies, application workflows, student engagement initiatives, and career services actually drive the outcomes they've committed to delivering.

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What Does This Mean for Higher Education Technology and Operations?

These strategic priorities have practical implications across institutional functions and technology decisions.

For admissions and enrolment management teams, the emphasis on demonstrable impact means claims require evidence. Generic messaging about transformational experiences faces scepticism without supporting data on graduate outcomes, employer satisfaction, and career progression. Funnel visibility and conversion tracking become essential rather than optional.

For IT leaders and operations teams, the collaboration trend drives demand for integration capabilities, open APIs, and platforms that complement existing student information systems. Isolated point solutions serving single functions are giving way to connected ecosystems that share data across recruitment, admissions, student success, and alumni engagement.

The preference is for cloud-native solutions purpose-built for higher education rather than generic CRMs requiring extensive customisation. Schools want admissions software and enrolment management platforms that understand academic workflows out of the box whilst offering the extensibility to integrate with existing enterprise systems.

For faculty, AI fluency is becoming a baseline expectation. Engaging proactively with AI tools, while faculty can still shape how they're used in their disciplines, offers more influence than waiting to see what emerges from institutional technology decisions.

For institutional leadership, the message from peers is clear: 2026 requires purposeful digital transformation that balances innovation with stability, moves at a pace organisations can absorb, and keeps focus on what business education is ultimately for.

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How Can Institutions Balance Innovation With Operational Stability?

Technology is advancing faster than most organisational cultures can comfortably absorb. Staff are navigating new admissions workflows, new student engagement tools, and new reporting expectations, often without adequate training or time to adapt.

• Treating pace as a leadership choice matters. Digital transformation speed isn't something that happens to institutions. Leaders choose how fast to move and accept responsibility for ensuring people can keep up with changes to student lifecycle management processes.
• Investing in change management support pays off. Training, experimentation time, and psychological safety matter. Staff who feel overwhelmed by new CRM implementations or admissions software don't use these tools effectively, undermining the productivity gains that justified the investment. (See how IÉSEG freed their IT team to focus on strategic initiatives.)
• Maintaining quality during transition remains essential. Innovation shouldn't come at the cost of what makes business education valuable. Rigorous thinking, meaningful student relationships, and genuine development of future leaders remain central to the mission.
• Incremental adoption paths reduce risk. Schools are increasingly favouring platforms that allow them to start with high-impact areas like admissions and recruitment, prove value quickly, and expand to additional student lifecycle stages over time rather than committing to comprehensive transformations upfront.

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Summary: Business School Leadership Priorities for 2026

Business school deans in 2026 are prioritising AI integration that amplifies human capabilities, ecosystem collaboration that replaces institutional isolation, demonstrable impact that proves rather than claims value, and managed digital transformation that balances change with stability.

For institutions evaluating technology investments, the implications are clear: solutions must integrate with existing enterprise CRM infrastructure, support the complete student lifecycle from recruitment through alumni engagement, deliver measurable outcomes through real-time analytics, and offer faster time-to-value than traditional multi-year implementations. See how leading business schools are putting these priorities into practice.

These priorities reflect a sector navigating significant disruption whilst trying to preserve what makes business education genuinely valuable: preparing people to lead organisations and societies through complexity, uncertainty, and change.

This article draws on insights from EFMD's 18 business school deans share their priorities for 2026.