Imperial College Business School

Imperial College Business School is a global business school in London, United Kingdom.  The Imperial College Business School was opened by Queen Elizabeth II in 2004, as a part of Imperial College London.   

As a global business school over 90 percent of the faculty are from outside of the UK, with an alumni network spanning 124 countries. The Imperial College Business School's mission is to develop the world's future leaders of business and society.  Global business leaders, the social sector, and government leadership often partner with the business school..      

Imperial College London is consistently ranked among the top 10 universities in the world in the 2020 Times Higher Education World University Rankings and QS World University Rankings. Among MBA strengths, it often places 1st for innovation and entrepreneurship in Europe in the QS Global MBA Rankings, Bloomberg, Financial Times and Reuters World's Most Innovative Universities.

History

Management Science Taught (1955–1971) 

The business school can trace its earliest origins to 1955, when the Operational Research/Management Science (ORMS) course started at Imperial in the Production Engineering Section of the Mechanical Engineering Department. There were only 5 students enrolled when the programme commenced in October 1955 at 14 Prince's Gardens, with an arrangement in place for students to be able to attend one-day intensive economics and accounting courses for one or two terms at the London School of Economics. The agreement became a reciprocal one lasting until 1966. In the mid-1960s, there was even the idea of creating a joint School of Administration, Economics and Technology (between Imperial and LSE) but this was ultimately rejected in favour of a new graduate school of business being started in the capital (and another in Manchester, now known as the Alliance Manchester Business School) in line with Lord Frank's 1963 report recommendations. Imperial and LSE acted as co-sponsors in the establishment of this new school, named the London Graduate School of Business Studies and now known as the London Business School. Accordingly, the London Business School's first academic planning board included the heads of Imperial College and LSE.

Department of Management Science (1971–1987)

From the ORMS course, a Department of Management Science (DMS) was established at Imperial in 1971, under the leadership of Samuel Eilon. The department was composed of staff and students from Imperial's Industrial Sociology Unit and at its inception had 15 academic staff and around 60 students on an MSc course. Over subsequent years the department grew and its focus shifted towards business studies.

School of Management (1987–2003)
In 1987 the Department of Management Science was merged with Imperial's Department of Social and Economic Studies to form a new School of Management, based in 2 large Victorian houses on Exhibition Road. David Norbun was the first Director. The School launched a new three-year part-time Executive MBA course.

Tanaka Business School (2003–2008)

In 2000 Gary A. Tanaka, an alumnus of Imperial, agreed to make a substantial donation to the college. It was decided to utilise the donation, together with other resources, to fund the transformation of the School of Management into a research-led business school. Tanaka ultimately donated a total of £27 million to Imperial, of which £25 million went to the new business school, in what was at the time the largest single donation to any European business school. The new Tanaka Business School was launched in 2003, with David Begg as Director.

Imperial College Business School (2008–present)
In August 2008 the school was renamed Imperial College Business School because the old name did not strongly emphasise its association with the College. The school's accommodation was subsequently named "the Tanaka Building". An alternative speculation is that the college changed the name of the school to distance itself from Tanaka's fraudulent activities after he was tried and found guilty of conspiracy, securities fraud and investment adviser fraud in the same year.

In March 2013 the British hedge fund manager and Imperial alumnus Alan Howard donated £20.1 million to fund the establishment of a finance research centre, the Brevan Howard Centre for Financial Analysis.

Campus

Buildings 

The main building is located at Imperial's South Kensington campus and has its main entrance on Exhibition Road. The building was designed by Foster and Partners and Buro Happold. It was constructed between September 2002 and June 2004 at a cost of £15.7 million, and was opened in 2004 by Queen Elizabeth II. The building was renamed the Tanaka Building in August 2008. The business school also operates out of a secondary building, 53 Prince's Gate, also in South Kensington.

Taught programmes

Postgraduate
Imperial College Business School offers the following postgraduate programmes: MBA (Imperial MBA, Imperial Executive MBA & Global MBA), Master's programmes, Joint Master's programmes, and a Doctoral programme.

Undergraduate
The school itself does not offer undergraduate degrees, however the majority of undergraduate students in other faculties at Imperial College London will have the option of studying management modules towards their degrees. Some departments' students can combine management with their science courses to attain a joint-honours degree. Medical students can study an intercalated BSc in Medical Sciences with Management while in their fourth year before returning to clinical training. Medical students from other universities can join this course.

Course fees
The cost of the full-time Imperial MBA (from September 2017) is £47,000. The Global Online MBA, Weekend MBA and Executive MBA cost £33,000, £42,000 and £46,000 respectively. The MSc Finance and MSc Management courses attract fees of £32,500 and £26,000 respectively.

Research and doctoral programme
Imperial College Business School is recognised as a leading research institution in business and management. In the 2014 Research Excellence Framework (REF), Imperial's business school had the highest proportion of ‘world-leading’ (4*) and ‘internationally excellent’ (3*) research in the UK (92%), ahead of the London School of Economics at 89%.

Doctoral students joining the business school's 5-year PhD in management programme assimilate into one of the following three research groups:
Management Group - examines many of the core management disciplines such as economics, health management, marketing, operations management, and strategy and organisational behaviour. The Group's work is complemented by the two specialist groups (below).
Finance Group - active in finance research. The group has particular interests in investments and asset pricing, corporate finance, finance and risk management and financial analysis.
Innovation and Entrepreneurship Group - focuses on how innovation occurs, how new products and processes are developed and how new ideas transfer from the lab to the organisation and how new products are adopted by consumers.

Admission 
Entrance to the PhD programme is highly competitive. The acceptance rate for new doctoral researchers at the business school is around 5% each year, with an annual intake of around 15 students.

Doctoral theses
Since 2008, 100 candidates have successfully completed their doctoral degrees at the business school via the submission and acceptance of a research thesis. These are held in physical form at Imperial's central library and can also be accessed electronically using the university's online repository, Spiral.

Rankings

Imperial College London placed in the top 10 universities in the world in 2019's Times Higher Education World University Rankings and 2019's QS World University Rankings.

MBA 
In 2019, Imperial is ranked 19th worldwide in the QS Global MBA Rankings. In 2019's QS Global MBA Rankings, Imperial is ranked 2nd worldwide, 1st in Europe for MBA's specializing in entrepreneurship.

Innovation & Entrepreneurship
Imperial has ranked 1st in entrepreneurship in Europe within Bloomberg, Financial Times, QS Global MBA Rankings, and Reuters -The World's Most Innovative Universities.

Masters in Management 
Imperial ranks 5th worldwide, in the 2019 QS Global MBA Rankings.

Masters in Business Analytics 
Imperial ranks 2nd worldwide, in the 2019 QS Global MBA Rankings.

Masters in Marketing
Imperial ranks 2nd worldwide, 1st in Europe, in the 2019 QS Global MBA Rankings.

Masters in Finance
Imperial ranks 5th worldwide, in the 2019 QS Global MBA Rankings.

Academic staff

Directors and Deans
 Sam Eilon (1955–1987)
 David Norbun (1987–2003)
 David Begg (2003–2012)
 Dorothy Griffiths (2012–2013)
 G. "Anand" Anandalingam (2013–June 2016)
 Nelson Phillips (July 2016–July 2017)
  Francisco Veloso (August 2017 – present)

Other notable academic staff
 Franklin Allen, Executive Director of the Brevan Howard Centre (2014–present)
 David Gann, Vice President Development and Innovation
 Carol Propper, CBE, FBA, Chair in Economics
 William Perraudin, economist (former Chair in Finance, now Adjunct Professor)
 David Miles, CBE, Professor of Financial Economics
 George Yip, Associate Dean for Executive Programmes and Professor of Marketing and Strategy
 Tommaso Valletti, Chair in Economics, Chief Competition Economist of the European Commission (2016–2019)

Notable alumni

References

External links
 Official site
 Imperial College Business School History and architecture of the school building

Category:Business schools in England
Category:Imperial College London
Category:Norman Foster buildings
Category:Educational institutions established in 2003
Business School