Alliance Manchester Business School (Alliance MBS) is the business school of the University of Manchester in Manchester, England. It is one of the oldest business schools in the UK, and provides education to undergraduates, postgraduates and executives.
According to the Financial Times 2018 Global MBA Rankings, its MBA programme is ranked 10th in Europe, 36th in the world and 4th in the UK. Its "MSc Business Analytics" programme ranked 6th in the world and 2nd in the UK; "MSc International Business and Management" 20th and "MSc Finance" 18th, as per the QS World University Ranking 2018.
It includes departments from both the former Victoria University of Manchester's Faculty of Business Administration, and from UMIST.
History
The "new" Manchester Business School was formed in 2004 as a result of the merger of UMIST's Manchester School of Management, the Institute of Innovation Research (IoIR), the Victoria University of Manchester's School of Accounting and Finance, and the "old" Manchester Business School. Prior to merger the constituent parts of new MBS formed, from 1994, the "Manchester Federal School of Business and Management". and occupied nearby buildings either side of Oxford Road
The foundation of the School dates back to 1918, when the Manchester Municipal College of Technology (as UMIST was then called) pioneered academic training in management, with the formation of a Department of Industrial Administration funded by an endowment from asbestos magnate Sir Samuel Turner. The London School of Economics and Manchester Municipal College of Technology were the first higher education institutions in the UK to follow the US trend of offering postgraduate management programmes in the 1930s. The Department of Industrial Administration was heavily influenced by management science pioneer Charles Garonne Renold. The Robbins Report in the 1960s recommended that two national centres for postgraduate business education be created, and the Franks Report subsequently suggested that one would be in London centred on the University of London (this would become the London Business School), and one in Manchester centred on the (Victoria) University and UMIST. These became the first two University Grants Committee-funded business schools. The MBA course started in 1967. In 1971, Manchester Business School and UMIST's Manchester School of Management were both among the twelve founder members of the Conference of University Management Schools (now the Chattered Association of Business Schools).
On 21 September 2015, Manchester Business School changed its name to Alliance Manchester Business School, following a donation from Lord Alliance of Manchester and his fellow Trustees of the Alliance Family Foundation.
Organisation
The school comes under the Faculty of Humanities of the University of Manchester. with over 200 teaching staff it is the largest campus-based business school in the country, and has an international student composition as three-quarters of its student body is from outside the UK.
Manchester offers PhD (full and part-time); D.B.A – Doctor of Business Administration (executive part-time); M.B.A – Master of Business Administration (full-time, executive part-time, and blended learning); several specialist masters programmes as well as undergraduate degrees. Entry requirements for undergraduate and postgraduate degrees are both highly competitive. For popular undergraduate courses such as Accounting and/or Finance, 70 places are available for approximately 1600 applicants. As of 2006, a minimum work experience of 3 years and a good GMAT is required for admission to the MBA programs.
The 18 months full-time MBA program is known for its "Manchester Method" which puts emphasis on learning by doing throughout the entire duration of the programme, including significant real life projects. In addition, the school offers the so-called "Manchester Gold" programme, a mentoring scheme to provide students with opportunities to meet regularly with professionals from a wide variety of sectors and industries. Last year's mentors, for example, came from high-profile companies such as Morgan Stanley, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Royal Dutch Shell Group, IBM Global Services and GlaxoSmithKline among many others.
As of 2013, the Head of MBS is Professor Fiona Devine OBE. The school's advisory board is chaired by businessman Tony De Nunzio.