Institute of Education
MBA Higher Education Management
2015 –16
“The MBA offered me a fantastic opportunity to develop
a strategic perspective of the requirements of university
leadership and management. It provided a space to explore
the theories and concepts in a wide range of relevant areas
and to develop a professional network which I still draw upon
today. All aspects of the programme have enabled me to
advance my career and add real value to my role.”
Dr Amanda Wilcox
Senior Advisor to the Pro-Vice-Chancellors
University of Hull
“I really enjoyed the MBA, it has provided me with a
lens through which to examine and deal with the varied
challenges I face in work and that face the sector
overall. It has definitely made a positive difference to my
effectiveness at work but also to my career.”
Stephen McAuliffe
Academic Registrar
University of Essex
Front cover: Dr Amanda Wilcox, Senior
Advisor to the Pro-Vice-Chancellors,
University of Hull with Stephen McAuliffe,
Academic Registrar, University of Essex
The management challenge
Higher education is a major and growing sector of the economies
of most advanced countries: in knowledge societies, the teaching,
research and related activities of universities and colleges are
fundamental to almost every other form of economic and social
activity. They employ large numbers of people and operate on an
increasingly global scale. Individual higher education institutions
are complex enterprises. They are working within local, national and
international networks, creating and processing rapidly-evolving
knowledge, operating in sensitive social and political environments,
making important economic and social contributions to their cities and
regions, striving for high ethical standards, and transforming the lives
of hundreds or thousands of students each year. There is no aspect of
modern life that their collective work does not touch.
There are quite extraordinary management challenges here. What
knowledge, skills and experiences are needed by those aiming to
meet these challenges? What kinds of management approaches and
strategies will help to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of an
institution’s activities and the systems within which it operates? What
are the characteristics of the university or college environment that
make it different from managing other similar-size organisations? What
are the similarities and what can we learn from other sectors? What
ideas, evidence and information are available to improve our own
understanding?
These are some of the questions that we ask in the MBA programme
in higher education management at the UCL Institute of Education.
We think that higher education management offers jobs that are
simultaneously highly stimulating and hugely demanding. To do them
well calls for an understanding of the holistic nature of universities
and colleges: the work of academics and professional staff is
interdependent, teaching and research inform one another, each
strategy or process has wider impacts. Managers therefore need an
understanding, in breadth and depth, of how the whole institution fits
together.
This is the basis of our programme. We hope that you will want to join
us, and become part of it.
“The MBA was a fantastic opportunity to engage
with a range of higher education policy issues. The programme content meant that I could move
my career into new areas such as university
finance. Having an MBA was one of the preferred
criteria for my current job so it has certainly proved
to be very useful. For the consultancy project
I had the opportunity to undertake a study at a
university in Canada which provided me with a
very interesting international perspective. The
programme also had a great range of participants
and we have kept in touch with each other long
after finishing our studies.”
Sarah Cowls
School Manager
Queen Mary University of London
1
The MBA in Higher Education Management Concept
The MBA programme in higher education management will
provide you with an intellectual and professional foundation for
the future development of your career. It is not a generic MBA
with some added higher education content, nor is it a master’s
course taking an essentially academic perspective: instead,
it is planned entirely around the demands of managing in
higher education, today and tomorrow. When you successfully
complete the programme, your understanding of key activities
and their interactions, across higher education institutions
and systems, will be both wide-ranging and profound. Our
programme is intellectually stimulating, professionally relevant,
exceptionally hard work – and, we hope, enjoyable.
We take concepts from the literatures on higher education
and on management more broadly and, as a group, test
them against the realities of managing in higher education.
The members of the course team are all involved in research,
consultancy and scholarly work, in the UK and abroad, of direct
relevance to the MBA: material from their work contributes to
teaching on the programme. This is supported by external
speakers of distinction from the worlds of policy, institutional
management and scholarship.
Our participants come from all types of higher education
institutions and bodies, and from all types of work within them.
Some are academics, with some experience of management,
preparing for their next career moves. Some are managers in
professional areas such as finance, marketing, or information
services, wanting to deepen their understanding of the special
higher education dimension of their work.
And some are managers working in functions with special
characteristics in universities and colleges – such as academic
planning, student services and registries, institutional
governance, and quality assurance – aiming for more senior
management jobs. We ask that all our participants have a
minimum of four years’ management experience; most have
more.
When you graduate, we hope that you will stay in touch
with your fellow MBA graduates, and with the programme,
through the alumni group, which offers networking and further
professional development opportunities.
Our programme is about managing in the UK higher education
context. But we welcome each year a small number of
participants working in other national higher education
systems, who enrich the programme with their complementary
experiences. These participants will have demonstrated that
they have a detailed understanding of, and professional interest
in, the UK system.
You will take the programme over two years, part-time. It is
credit-based, with 180 credits needed for completion.
The programme has been operating since 2002.
Its founding directors were Professors Michael Shattock
and Gareth Williams.
“The MBA programme is hard work
but rewarding. The strength of the
programme lies not only in the expertise
of the programme staff and guest lecturers,
but also in the collective knowledge
and experience of the students. Having
completed the programme I feel I have the
knowledge and confidence to pursue the
career I want.”
Vanessa Powell
Institute Manager
UCL Cancer Institute
2
The programme structure
The programme is organised around three main topics, which make up the core modules:
managing teaching
and research
strategy
understanding the core business of the
enterprise, what makes these activities
“effective”, and what “management”
means in relation to them
the choices that an institution has made,
what it plans to do in the future, and why,
and thinking about university strategy in
a wider organisational context
finance
where the public and private resources
that fund higher education come from,
the changing demands of government
and funding agencies, and how resources
are then deployed internally
These, collectively, cover the major management tasks in every university or college. You will develop your own “big picture” in these
modules, and come to see them not simply as separate, though vital, tasks, but as an integrated and dynamic set of activities.
We want you to bring your own experiences of these and other management tasks to bear on what has been written about these
topics, and what will be said about them on the course. Our aim is that you should develop your own intellectual approach to
integrating real-life experiences with academic ideas and empirical evidence, which you will carry with you into your professional life.
A range of optional modules allows you to develop your understanding of particular aspects of institutional management in more
detail, building on and deepening your learning from the core modules. This is a summary of our current suite of optional modules,
from which most participants choose four:
governance
managing people in a
learning organisation
internationalisation
a critical examination of the principles
and practice of institutional governance,
making comparisons with other
corporate governance models
examining the distinctive characteristics of
effective human resource management and
organisational development in universities
and colleges
while student recruitment is one important
aspect, how should institutional managers
respond more broadly to working in a
globalised world?
knowledge exchange
and engagement
marketing
physical resources
the management of the university’s
relationships with its locality and its
region, the exploitation of its research,
and the strategic implications of this work
examining the different activities that
make up the marketing function and
how they can, and should, relate to the
institution’s academic work
how can the management of the university
estate be integrated with institutional
strategy more broadly?
student experience
how can management help to ensure that
students’ interactions with the institution
are effective and worthwhile?
The choice of optional modules offered in any one year will reflect the preferences expressed by all course participants. Additionally,
relevant modules carrying up to 30 credits may be taken from other MA programmes offered by the Institute. We are also willing
to consider offering advanced standing by recognising a limited number of credits of appropriate quality and relevance gained
elsewhere and counting these towards completion of the MBA. This would mean that you would take one or two fewer optional
modules.
Usually during the second year of the programme, you will work on a real-life consultancy project (30 credits), in an institution other
than your own. The client is involved in assessing the project outputs – usually a report. Students report that applying their learning
from the programme to their consultancy project is both stimulating and challenging. An alternative is to write a more formal academic
dissertation on a management topic (60 credits), which means that you would take two fewer optional modules. You will be advised
on these possibilities, and specialist support will be available for both the project and dissertation routes.
3
The programme operates through week-long (Sunday evening
to Friday afternoon) residential modules at the start of each term
of the course: autumn (October), Spring (January) and Summer
(April/May). There are usually two distinct module elements within
each week; the exception is the October module in each year,
which is devoted to a single topic. The October modules are held
in London, at the Institute; the others are held at different university
locations around the UK – we aim to use the resources of our host
university to provide additional learning opportunities. Residential
accommodation is arranged for you, apart from the October
module. For the Spring and Summer residentials all participants
will be charged one of the following rates, as appropriate. A
24 hour delegate rate, if staying at the conference hotel; a day
delegate rate, if taking meals during the day, but not overnight
accommodation; or a delegate fee if no meals or accommodation
are taken but the participant is attending a module.
There is one entry point to the programme each year.
This timetable shows how the programme for entrants in
October 2015 will work:
Dates
(provisional)
Credits
Year One
Introduction to
the programme
2-day session
immediately prior to
first module
17 -18 October 2015
The management of
teaching and research
in higher education
1-week residential
The management of
financial resources in
higher education
(Part 1)
1-week residential
19 -23 October 2015
15
25 -29 January 2016
15
Optional module
Two optional modules
30
1-week residential
8 -13 May 2016
15 per
module
Higher education
Institutions as
organisations: their
strategic management
1-week residential
30
The management of
financial resources in
higher education
(Part 2)
1-week residential
Year Two
17-21 October 2016
22-27 January 2017
15
Optional module
Two optional modules
15
1-week residential
7-12 May 2017
Project report or
dissertation
15 per
module
30 or 60
“The MBA deepened my knowledge of HE management, widened my perspective of the sector and established invaluable networks. The
combination of academic rigour and professional
practice gave me the confidence I needed to make a step change in my career.”
Holly Duglan
Director of Strategic Planning and MI
GSM London
4
Working towards your MBA
The different sessions in each module are led by either a
member of the course team, or another expert in the field.
We place a particular emphasis on arranging for leading
practitioners and managers to speak about their work, as
well as senior people from bodies such as HEFCE, the
QAA and the HEA, and academics who are authorities on
particular management topics.
Although our teaching sessions vary quite considerably
in form and style, we plan them all to be lively and
participative. Ideas from the taught sessions are then often
applied in work in small syndicate groups, which report
back during the module weeks with their conclusions and
recommendations on a management task presented to
them.
Participants are required to complete 3,000-word (15
credits) or 5,000-word (30 credits) written assignments
for each module. Support is provided through our Virtual
Learning Environment, and by contact with a personal
academic adviser. Wherever you are based, you will be able
to draw on the Institute’s exceptional and comprehensive
library resources.
The MBA programme has a collaborative agreement with
the Politecnico di Milano, Italy for higher education modules
taught in English. These arrangements can provide for credit
gained at one institution to be accepted by the other.
“The MBA offered me the opportunity to enhance my
leadership and management skills and to deepen my
understanding of the national and international higher
education sector. A day does not go by when I do not
draw upon what I learned on the course.”
Professor Mark P. Taylor
Dean, Warwick Business School
Pro Vice-Chancellor, University of Warwick
5
The Programme Team
Programme Directors
Professor Sir Peter Scott who joined the Institute of
Education as Professor of Higher Education Studies in
January 2011, is Co-director of the MBA programme.
He was formerly Vice-Chancellor of Kingston University,
London. He was a member of the board of the Higher
Education Funding Council for England from 2000 to 2006.
Before going to Kingston he was Professor of Education at
the University of Leeds (and later Pro-Vice-Chancellor with
responsible for external affairs). From 1976 until 1992 he
was Editor of what was then The Times Higher Education
Supplement. His research interests are in governance and
management and new patterns of research production.
He is a Trustee of the Higher Education Policy Institute
(HEPI) and was Chair of the Council of the University of
Gloucestershire from 2011 until 2015.
William Locke is Reader in Higher Education Studies and
Co-Director of the MBA programme. He also co-directs
the Institute’s Centre for Higher Education Studies and
from October 2015 is Deputy Director of the ESRC/HEFCE
Centre for Global Higher Education based at the UCL IOE.
William was formerly Head of Learning and Teaching policy
at HEFCE. He is a member of the Governing Council of
the SRHE and an Associate Editor of the London Review
of Education journal. His research interests include
the governance and management of higher education
institutions; the changing academic profession; higher
education policy and policy-making; the impact of
marketisation (including league tables and other forms of
ranking) on higher education institutions and systems; and
conceptions of teaching, learning and students. He has a
wide range of other publications, including journal articles,
book chapters and policy reports and has given keynote
presentations at international conferences in North America,
Japan, China, Australia and throughout Europe.
The Programme Team
Professor Claire Callender is Professor of Higher
Education Studies at the UCL Institute of Education and
at Birkbeck, University of London. From October 2015 she
is Deputy Director of the ESRC/HEFCE Centre for Global
Higher Education based at the UCL IOE and heads up one
of its three research programmes. Claire was awarded a
Fulbright New Century Scholarship for 2007-08 and spent
time at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Her
research and writing has focused on student finances in
higher education and related issues. She has undertaken
research for the most significant committees of inquiries
into student funding in the UK, and gave verbal evidence
to Lord Browne’s Independent Review of Higher Education
Funding and Student Finance. She recently co-edited
Student Financing of Higher Education: A Comparative
Perspective (2013, Routledge) with Professor Don Heller,
and Browne and Beyond: Modernizing English Higher
Education, (2013, Bedford Way Papers) with
Professor Sir Peter Scott.
6
Dr Vincent Carpentier is Reader in History of Education
at the UCL Institute of Education. He is the Programme
Leader of the MA in Higher and Professional Education and
Associate Editor of the London Review of Education. His
comparative research on the historical relationship between
educational systems, long economic cycles and social
change is located at the interface of history of education
and political economy. He has conducted an ESRC funded
research project on the long-term connections and tensions
between higher education funding and access policies.
His publications include Système éducatif et performances
économiques au Royaume-Uni: 19ème et 20ème siècles
(L’Harmattan, 2001) and Global Inequalities and Higher
Education: Whose Interests Are We Serving? (Palgrave
MacMillan, 2010 - co-edited with Elaine Unterhalter) and
articles in various academic journals such as Economies et
Sociétés, History of Education, Paedagogica Historica,
Higher Education Management and Policy, and
Higher Education Quarterly.
Dr Gwyneth Hughes is Reader in Higher Education and
Programme Leader for the MA in Teaching and Learning
in Higher and Professional Education. Previous posts
were manager of the Centre for Learning Technologies at
the University of East London, and Head of Educational
Development at Thames Valley University. She has
researched and published widely on e-learning and
blended learning and more recently assessment. She
recently led a 3-year Institute-wide JISC funded project on
assessment and feedback. Her book Ipsative Assessment:
motivation through marking progress was published by
Palgrave Macmillan in 2014. She is on the editorial board
for the journal London Review of Education and is a
Fellow of the Centre of Distance Education, London.
Professor Ian McNay is Emeritus Professor of Higher
Education and Management at the University of Greenwich,
where he was Head of the School of Post-Compulsory
Education and Training. After experience as administrator
and policy advisor on both sides of the former binary line,
and on the European mainland, he worked as an academic
and manager with the Open University before becoming
Head of the Centre for Higher Education Management at
Anglia Ruskin University, and then moved to Greenwich,
where he continues in a fractional appointment. His
research interests include: policy analysis, particularly
Research Quality Assessment, and Access and Widening
Participation; organisation cultures of HEIs, and leadership/
management of institutions. He is currently working on an
EU funded project developing leadership skills in
Ukrainian universities.
Entry requirements
Professor Simon Marginson is UCL IOE Professor of
International Higher Education and joint Editor-in-Chief of
the principal academic journal in the field, Higher Education.
Simon works on international and global aspects of higher
education, including rankings, international students, higher
education in East Asia; higher education policy; and the social
role of the sector. Simon is a public commentator and one
of the world’s most highly cited scholars in relation to higher
education. His 16 books include The Enterprise University (with
Mark Considine, 2000), and Higher Education and Globalisation
(edited with Roger King and Rajani Naidoo, 2011). In 2014
Simon was elected to Academia Europaea, delivered the Clark
Kerr lectures on higher education at the University of California,
Berkeley, and received the Research Achievement award at
the US-based Association for Studies in Higher Education.
From October 2015 he is Director of the ESRC/HEFCE Centre
for Global Higher Education based at the UCL IOE and heads
up one of its three research programmes.
Dr Paul Temple is Reader Emeritus in Higher Education at
the Institute, where he until recently co-directed its Centre for
Higher Education Studies. He has written on university strategy,
management, and on higher education issues in Central and
Eastern Europe. He has taken part in several research projects
on university/enterprise interactions in Europe, which led to his
edited book, Universities in the Knowledge Economy (Routledge,
2012). His edited book, The Physical University: Contours of
Space and Place in Higher Education (Routledge, 2014) reflects
his interest in the implications of the university’s physical
form. In 2014 he led a research team funded by the Higher
Education Academy which studied how the management of
the student experience in English universities was changing.
His latest book, The Hallmark University: Distinctiveness in Higher
Education Management (2014), which draws on his experience
of teaching on the MBA programme, is published by the IOE Press.
Dr Celia Whitchurch is Senior Lecturer in higher education.
Her current research interests focus on academic and
professional roles and identities, and changing staffing
models in higher education, and the implications of these
changes for institutions and individuals. Projects include a
study for the Leadership Foundation for Higher Education
(LFHE) on Professional Managers in UK Higher Education:
Preparing for Complex Futures (2008), an LFHE-funded study
on Staffing Models and Institutional Flexibility (2013), and a
Higher Education Academy (HEA) project on the professional
development needs of a diversifying workforce. She has
published widely, including an edited monograph (with George
Gordon) on Academic and Professional Identities in Higher
Education: The Challenges of a Diversifying Workforce (2010),
and a single-authored monograph, Reconstructing Identities in
Higher Education: The Rise of Third Space Professionals (2013),
both published by Routledge. She is currently an editor of
Higher Education Quarterly.
You should have a degree with at least second class
honours or an equivalent qualification, together with
a minimum of four years’ professional experience
in higher education. Applicants not meeting these
requirements may be asked to undertake some
prescribed qualifying work, and to provide a
recommendation from their employing institution.
Candidates formally applying who meet the
requirements set out above will be invited for
interview in London.
Fees
The tuition fee for the whole two-year programme for
UK and other EU entrants in 2015/16 is £13,565. For
non-EU entrants it is £15,594. This does not include
accommodation costs of approximately £800 per
person per week-long residential and travel expenses.
The programme is only available on a part-time basis.
“The MBA was a tremendous experience that
helped me gain a strategic perspective on
higher education management and policy.
Sharing expertise with colleagues from across
the sector and building networks were a
bonus and have been invaluable for my job at
Birkbeck.”
Andi Schmidt
School Manager
Birkbeck College
7
Institute of Education
The UCL Institute of Education (IOE) is the leading centre
for education and applied social science. Founded in
1902, we continue to generate and promote new ideas in
policy and professional practice. In 2014, the IOE became
part of University College London, one of the world’s top
universities, founded in 1826 to open up education to all
on equal terms. Today, UCL’s outstanding research and
innovative teaching aim to find solutions to the world’s
major problems.
The IOE provides the UK’s widest range of flexible
programmes in education and related social sciences
for nearly 8,000 masters and doctoral students and
trainee teachers. We offer more masters programmes
in education than any other UK institution and doctoral
degrees for over 900 specialists in education and
social research. Students come from a wide range of
employment backgrounds – education, health and
social care departments, local and national government,
charities, voluntary and non-governmental organisations
and the private and commercial world.
The Institute of Education was rated the pre-eminent UK
educational research institution in the 2014 UK Research
Excellence Framework. 48% of the IOE’s research was
rated as world leading, with 74% of our impact case
studies and 100% of our research environment also
given this top rating. Our research ‘power’ (quality and
volume) was more than four times higher than the next
best performer. The IOE conducts around a quarter of
the educational research carried out in UK Universities.
We are also the second highest recipient of social science
research funding among UK higher education institutions.
The MBA course team is located within the Centre for
Higher Education Studies (CHES), a multidisciplinary
research centre. CHES undertakes research and
consultancy on a variety of topics, many directly related
to teaching on the MBA programme. CHES is directed by
Professor Sir Peter Scott and William Locke.
“The MBA was a hugely rewarding learning experience,
with excellent teachers and inspiring fellow students.
It meant lots of hard work and late nights fitting it around
the day job, but also opened doors and really helped my
professional development. I believe everyone in my cohort
has taken an upward career step following the course!”
Ruaidhri Donnelly
8
Head of Quality and Standards Assurance
Brunel University
For further information, please contact:
MBA Administrator
Centre for Higher Education Studies
UCL Institute of Education,
University College London
20 Bedford Way
London WC1H 0AL
Telephone +44 (0)20 7331 5121
Fax +44 (0)20 7612 6632
Email mhem@ioe.ac.uk
Website www.ioe.ac.uk
The Institute of Education reserves the right at all times to withdraw
or alter the programme or parts of the programme.
This document is available in a range of alternative formats.
Please contact the External Relations Department for assistance.
Telephone +44 (0)20 7911 5556
Email info@ioe.ac.uk