(Marketwire - Apr 17, 2012) - The Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC), owner of the GMAT exam and the leading membership organization of graduate business and management schools worldwide, today announced that it is presenting more than US$7.1 million in grants to 12 organizations around the world as part of its Ideas to Innovation (i2i) Challenge.

The institutions will receive funding to implement programs focused on creating social responsibility and service learning opportunities in graduate management education, building new pathways for military veterans into business leadership, and encouraging global collaboration among educational institutions.

Schools and organizations developed their grant proposals in response to an earlier phase of the i2i Challenge, in which individuals were invited to answer the question, "What one idea would improve graduate management education?" That phase of the program attracted more than 650 ideas from more than 60 countries that were then reduced to 20 winning ideas. In total, 17 of those 20 winning i2i concepts, which were announced in January 2011, will be implemented by the organizations that were awarded today.

The i2i Challenge was created and managed by the GMAC's Management Education for Tomorrow (MET) Fund, a US$10 million initiative to advance business education around the world.

Twenty-five proposals from seven countries were submitted in the second round of the challenge, which ran from January to December 2011. The grantees include business schools and organizations in the U.S., Canada, Spain, Italy, India and Botswana.

"The foundation of the MET Fund has been that GMAC -- starting with the GMAT exam and culminating in this phase of i2i grants -- should be investing in and giving back to management education and its institutions. And not just giving back, but giving back in order to move management education forward," said David A. Wilson, president and CEO of GMAC. "The power of these grants is in the implementation of ideas that can reshape and revitalize management education worldwide, and that acknowledge the critical role that management education plays in training and developing business leaders who can have global impact."

Net Impact, the University of Botswana, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore and the S.P. Jain Institute of Management and Research will develop programs focused on social responsibility and increased opportunity, including collaboration with non-profits, a mentorship program for underprivileged children in Mumbai, and expanding access to business education resources and entrepreneurship networks in Africa.

Five of the winning proposals -- from Pepperdine University, ESADE Business School, the University of Texas at Tyler, the University of Waterloo and the University of California at San Diego -- are dedicated to building online, international collaboration among business school students and faculty. These include programs to create virtual campuses, classrooms and training modules.

The winning proposals from Syracuse University, the University of South Florida St. Petersburg and the SUNY Empire State College Foundation offer plans to develop specialized coursework for veterans, integrating armed services leadership experience into the development of business management skills. These three programs have the potential to offer important insights into the development of specialized management training programs for students with an array of career experience and qualifications.

Additional information about all of the winning entries and the organizations that submitted them is available here. Information about the first-round winners and the ideas they generated is here.

About GMAC and the GMAT exam

The Graduate Management Admission Council® (gmac.com) is a nonprofit education organization of leading graduate business schools and owner of the Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT®) exam, used by more than 5,400 graduate business and management programs worldwide. GMAC is based in Reston, Virginia, and has regional offices in London, New Delhi and Hong Kong. The GMAT exam -- the only standardized test designed expressly for graduate business and management programs worldwide -- is continuously available at nearly 600 test centers in over 110 countries. More information about the GMAT exam is available at mba.com.

Graduate Management Admission Council

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