The issue or problem being investigated for the business research project can be a long standing, faced by the organization for more than 3 years, such as high staff turnover, low productivity, or negative profitability.

However, the supporting document must be published within 3 years prior to submission of the business research project to the IB (20th April for May centres and 20th October for November centres). Supporting documents (within the 3 year window) may uncover a solution to this ongoing issue or problem, such as the use of Artificial Intelligence as a solution to low productivity.

Hence, the research question does not have be within the 3 years prior to submission of the business research project to the IB, but the solution which is based on analyzing the findings from the supporting documents must be.

Nevertheless, the pragmactic approach to the contemporary nature of the IA is that using a non-comtemporary issue/problem means students are unlikely to be able to gather the necessary supporting documents requried to demonstrate the skills of analysis and evaluation in the business research project. After all, contemporary supporting documents do not tend to exist for historical events/issues, such as the global financial crisis of 2008. Even if they did, this would tend to lead to a highly descriptive piece of work being submitted for assessment as we have seen (too many of) with the old SL IAs.

Finally, note that the 3-year contemporary rule does not apply any additional sources of information used for the business research project (such as IB textbooks, revision guides, and educational journals). The rule is exclusive to the 3 - 5 chosen supporting documents.