Best Business Universities in Manchester

The new history of one of the best European business schools Manchester Business School began just a year ago. Then she merged with three other Manchester business schools. Apparently, the result was worth the effort spent on the merger.

So, today you can specialize in almost any area of ​​business, and the staff of teachers and the number of students at the school have tripled. Along with the increased opportunities, so did the ambitions of Manchester Business School .

In Manchester there is nothing of the refined, intelligent and clean Oxford and Cambridge. This industrial city of two million is like a three-layer pie: dirty suburbs, a tidy old part, and an eclectic center where a modest church sits next to a glass-and-concrete business center.

In Manchester, they say that recently there have been major changes in the university life in Britain. Instead of the “golden triangle” – Cambridge, Oxford, London – a “golden rhombus” appeared. The fourth “corner” was Manchester, in which in 2004 there was a merger of two of the four local universities – The University of Manchester and The University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST).

The official version of the merger is a combination of science and engineering. In addition, it so happened that similar faculties of these universities are located several tens of meters from each other. For example, on one side of the street is the medical faculty of The University of Manchester, and across the road is the corresponding faculty of UMIST. “Before that, there was a ridiculous situation when two universities, thirty meters apart, constantly duplicated packages of orders for the purchase of expensive equipment,” says Professor John Arnold, head of Manchester Business School. However, one does not leave the feeling that the more important reason is the desire to create a powerful scientific and educational center in the northern part of the country that could compete with Oxford or Cambridge.
In the process of merging universities, it was absolutely logical, according to MBS Dean for Academic Affairs Ken Green, to merge the business schools operating under them. However, in this matter the schools went further than their “mother” structures. They created an alliance of not two, but four business schools that existed in the city.

The alliance includes:
– Manchester Business School (The University of Manchester)
– The Victoria University of Manchester School of Accounting and Finance
– Manchester School of Management, owned by UNIST
– School of Innovative research (The Institute of Innovation Research, IoIR)
The name Manchester Business School is now the common name of the alliance and flaunts on all school booklets.

The main building of the school is located on one of the busiest streets in Manchester – Booth Street West, and it is difficult to find it. The vertical, narrow logo plate is cleverly hidden behind a ledge in the wall, and can only be seen if you know exactly where it is. The school has four buildings in total. Two of them – absolutely identical, strict red and black brick boxes – are located on opposite sides of the street and are connected by an overpass, and two more of the same industrial buildings are located on the other side of the city. It turns out that those who sent me in different directions were right.
After the merger, the school introduced uniform requirements for applicants, general administration and a single financial policy. If Manchester Business School, the most successful in the alliance, has an annual income of £14 million, then after the merger this figure will rise to at least £31 million.
In its current unified state, the school has existed for only a year. But she seems to have big plans (see interview with Manchester Business School Dean of Academic Affairs below). How justified they are, it will become clear only in a few years.