Case competition participants work in teams to analyze and solve current business problems, learning about various aspects like operations, finance, and marketing. In addition to providing fresh perspectives to the companies involved, these competitions also equip students with practical skills and real-world insights.

The Center for Professional Responsibility in Business and Society (CPRBS) Business Sustainability Case Competition is an annual event offering students the opportunity to tackle real-world business issues using principles of professional responsibility and data analytics. Its purpose is to enhance skills in critical thinking, problem-solving, and effective communication.

The Challenge: Transforming Data into a Strategic Asset for Societal Impact

The University of Illinois possesses a wealth of sustainability expertise, but this knowledge is often dispersed across colleges, departments, and individual research projects. To address this, we have developed the Gies Sustainability Dashboard that maps faculty research to the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). 

This year’s case competition invites you to go beyond hypothetical exercises and tackle a live, mission-driven challenge: How can we better connect the University of Illinois’ sustainability expertise to society’s needs? The current challenge frames this as organizing dispersed knowledge, but that's just the beginning. What if the dashboard could show how a professor's solar research led to a local company employing 200 people? How education research closed achievement gaps in Illinois schools? How public health innovations moved from campus labs to rural clinics to healthier communities statewide?

Your mission is to provide a strategic roadmap that tackles three core challenges: Data Expansion, Insight Generation, and Dashboard Visualization. 

Now, we’re turning to our student learners to generate fresh insights and practical recommendations that will help improve, scale, and communicate this tool more effectively to key audiences, including:

• Students looking for purpose-driven learning and career paths
• Sponsors and donors looking for measurable societal impact
• University leadership seeking data to guide investments and strategic priorities

Background: The Current Platform 

• Data Source: Automatic scraping and processing of faculty research publications from the "Illinois Experts" database.
• Core Technology: A Large Language Model (LLM) analyzes research abstracts to classify each publication's relevance to the 17 UN SDGs.
• Current Visualizations: The dashboard presents descriptive analytics, including:
• Overall SDG alignment for the college.
• Breakdowns of SDG-related research by department and faculty.
• Trends in sustainability publications over time.

The dashboard:

• Provides a repository of resources for students (mentors, awards, RA positions)
• Supports strategic planning, storytelling, and fundraising for the college
• Delivers outputs in the form of a CPRBS-hosted website, brochure mockups, and interactive visualizations

Your Mission: Three Pillars of Impact

We challenge your team to develop a comprehensive set of recommendations that address the following three pillars. A winning submission will provide detailed, practical solutions for at least one pillar of your choice.

To help clarify expectations:

• Pillars 1 and 2 include bullet points that are illustrative prompts—they serve as a menu of possible directions and use cases. You are not expected to address every point, but strong submissions will demonstrate thoughtful prioritization and consideration of multiple stakeholders.
• Pillar 3, by contrast, is intended to be an exhaustive list of required elements. Each component should be explicitly addressed in your proposal.

Pillar 1: The Data Engine (A Scalable Data Strategy)

The platform's value is directly tied to the quality and breadth of its data. Your task is to design a robust strategy for data acquisition and verification that can scale to other colleges and eventually, to other top US universities.

• Data Acquisition: Propose a strategy for collecting research data from other institutions.
• Evaluate the pros and cons of primary data sources (e.g., Google Scholar, Scopus, Web of Science).
• Faculty Verification: A key challenge with public databases is verifying that a faculty member is currently active at a specific institution.
• Design a reliable, automatable process to cross-reference and validate faculty data (e.g., by scraping university faculty directories).
• Expanding Data Horizons: What new types of data, beyond publications, would create a more holistic picture of the university's sustainability impact?
• Consider grants, patents, course curricula, student projects, corporate partnerships, and public policy papers. How would you source and integrate this data?
• Accuracy & Trustworthiness: How should we evaluate the accuracy of the dashboard’s automated insights—especially for complex tasks like SDG classification or researcher clustering? Can users audit or challenge the tool’s underlying logic and recommendations? What forms of transparency or explainability are needed to build user trust? How might we improve technical transparency without overwhelming non-technical users? Could we incorporate an “Accuracy Check” tab to surface classification logic, confidence levels, and audit trails? Should we include interactive feedback mechanisms—such as a “Flag this Insight” button—to allow users to correct or question misclassified data?

Pillar 2: From Data to Decisions (Actionable Insight Generation)

A great dashboard doesn't just present data; it provides intelligence that drives decisions. How can we move beyond simple charts to deliver insights that are valuable to key stakeholders?

• For University Leadership: How can the dashboard help a Dean or Provost identify strategic strengths, investment opportunities, or gaps in the university's research portfolio? What key metrics would they need to see?
• For Fostering Collaboration: Propose features that would help connect researchers across different departments or colleges who are working on similar SDGs. Could the dashboard identify potential interdisciplinary research teams?
• For External Storytelling & Accountability: How can the data be packaged to create compelling narratives for donors, corporate sponsors, alumni, and prospective students and their parents? What "impact stories" can the data tell? 
• For Predictive Analytics: What are the next-level analytical capabilities? Could the tool identify emerging research trends or predict which sustainability areas will become strategic priorities in the next 5 years?  Could this tool help inform future instruction and course innovations?  

Pillar 3: The User Experience (Dashboard & Visualization Design)

The dashboard must effectively communicate complex data to diverse audiences. Your task is to reimagine its interface and user experience to maximize clarity and impact.

• The Landing Page: Design the ideal "first glance" dashboard.
• What are the 3-5 most critical pieces of information that every visitor should see immediately?
• Create a wireframe or mockup of your proposed landing page.
• Design or nudge ideal web pages that could “link to” this landing page? How do we get more traffic to the site? 
• Advanced Visualizations: Propose new and innovative ways to visualize the data beyond standard bar and pie charts.
• Consider network graphs (to show collaboration), geographic maps (to show global impact), or interactive trendlines. Explain why your chosen visualizations are more effective.
• User Journeys & Personas: Develop user journey maps for two key personas:
• A prospective student looking for a faculty mentor in sustainable finance.
• A donor interested in funding research on renewable energy.
• How would each user navigate the dashboard to find what they need? What specific filters, search functionalities, or drill-down options are essential?

Important Dates (Fall 2025)

• Kickoff Workshop: October 3, 3:00–5:00 PM (Zoom)
  At least one team member must attend before registering.

https://illinois.zoom.us/j/5295292529?pwd=Y09MdFRmM040SmhzYjFFa0F0VjlZZz09

• Registration Deadline: October 10, 11:00 PM
• Interim Checkpoint: November 7 (Friday) 

Teams should be prepared to share a clear concept outline, including your proposed problem framing, initial design mockups (if any), and any preliminary analyses or insights you’ve gathered. This checkpoint is an opportunity to get early feedback from mentors—don’t worry about having a polished solution yet, but your direction should be clear and grounded in data or stakeholder needs.

• Final Submission: November 14 (Friday)
• Finalist Selection: December 3 (Wednesday)
• Final Presentations & Awards: TBD.

What’s in It for You?

1. Team Up
   Form a group of 2 to 5 students to collaborate on this interdisciplinary project.
2. Real-World Impact
   Your work may directly shape how the university tells its sustainability story—and how it empowers students and faculty to make a difference.
3. Showcase Your Skills
   Top teams will present their ideas to industry professionals and university leaders. Winners receive cash prizes and visibility.

Judging Criteria - What Matters Most?

Final judging will consider both technical feasibility and innovation, but innovation will carry slightly greater weight. That said, teams should aim to demonstrate a credible path to implementation—your ideas should be both visionary and grounded. Bonus points for working prototypes, data-driven insights, or real-world stakeholder engagement.

Questions? Contact:

Dr. Fei Du, Associate Director, CPRBS — feidu@illinois.edu