About

Tracking the Finance function, together.

FDF — Future Directions in Finance — is an international academic consortium that has been studying how the Finance function is evolving since 2022.

Mission

The Finance function is under pressure. New technologies, evolving reporting demands, ESG, and the rise of AI are reshaping what it means to be a CFO, a controller, or a finance business partner. Yet rigorous, cross-country evidence on how the function is actually changing remains scarce.

FDF exists to fill that gap. Each year, a consortium of European business schools fields the same survey among senior finance leaders — in their own language — and publishes a free International Report alongside country-level analyses. The aim is twofold:

For academics: a shared, longitudinal dataset that supports comparative, peer-reviewed research on management accounting, controlling and performance management.
For practitioners: benchmarks and evidence that CFOs and their teams can use to position their own function and spark better conversations about where to invest.

How we work

Every year the consortium agrees on a single theme — self-service BI, ESG, AI, ambidexterity — and co-designs one questionnaire. The questionnaire is translated and fielded by the local partner in each country during a shared fielding window, usually between June and October.

Data is aggregated centrally, cleaned, and analysed to produce:

The International Report, published annually in English (available here).
Country-specific analyses in the local language, delivered by each partner.
Peer-reviewed academic papers drawing on the pooled data.

Overall coordination is led by Prof. Dr. Klaus Möller (University of St.Gallen), with each partner responsible for data collection and stakeholder engagement in their country.

Governance

FDF is a lightweight research consortium, not a legal entity. Each participating university contributes faculty time, fields the survey locally, and co-authors the output. There are no membership fees; the consortium is funded by participating universities and by corporate sponsors who support the annual symposium and launch events.

All respondents participate anonymously and confidentially. No individual company or respondent is ever identified in the published results. See our privacy policy for details on data handling.