SIRI Practicum Clients Information
The SIRI Practicum U8908 (formerly known as Sustainable Investing Research Consulting Project) is an experiential learning course where students work on a client-driven sustainable investing research consulting project from anywhere in the world. The projects are proposed by the clients and carefully curated by SIPA’s Sustainable Investing Research Initiative (SIRI) faculty. The course includes sustainable investing projects from both the financial sector and the real economy (for-profit and non-profit organizations). Beyond providing key insights to the client, each project deliverable aims to identify rigorous implications for industry, academia, and policy.
The SIRI Practicum is led by Professor C. Sara Minard, Adjunct Professor of International and Public Affairs and The Brandmeyer Fellow for Impact and Sustainable Investing.
If you are interested in learning more and becoming a client, please contact us at
[email protected] and [email protected]
The Process
- Client Identification: We select a wide range of client projects each semester from all regions of the world. There is no fee for clients to participate in this course.
- Team Formation: The teaching team carefully matches the students with the projects in multi-disciplinary teams of four, such that student project preferences, career aspirations, work experience, team composition, project needs in terms of skills and expertise, and other factors are considered. Students are selected through a competitive application process.
- Client-Student Consultations: Student teams engage with the client on a regular basis and each project averages 250 work hours.
- Presentation of Final Deliverables: Student teams work on analyzing the unique challenges and opportunities faced by the client and their industry/sector, conduct in-depth, original research, synthesize their findings, and develop a coherent set of recommendations on the client’s best options for implementation. Student teams formally present their final work to the client and concerned stakeholders.
Our Students
The SIRI Practicum is a graduate course offered at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA). This course is open to all graduate students across Columbia University, including SIPA, Columbia Business School, Climate School, School of Professional Studies, Law School, and others. The student teams bring a diverse set of experiences in the private and public sector. They are equipped with strong professional and academic training in quantitative analysis; economic, energy, environmental, and social policy; corporate sustainability; impact measurement and management; impact and sustainability reporting; sustainable finance, impact investing, and blended finance; and much more. The student teams bring new, multidisciplinary perspectives to the client’s pioneering work in sustainability.
Clients
The SIRI Practicum welcomes collaborative partnerships with public and private companies, investment funds, asset owners and asset managers, foundations, nonprofit organizations, international organizations, and others who are committed to creating meaningful impact with these projects. Each client will prepare their Scope of Work and identify a main contact person who e-meets with the students on a regular (weekly or biweekly) basis. Clients have a dedicated SIRI faculty advisor to accompany the student team throughout the semester.
A sample of our clients are listed below:
