Nottingham still best in UK for an MBA in corporate social responsibility, says survey

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Nottingham University Business School remains the UK’s leading provider for MBAs which offer future business leaders a valuable insight into wider corporate social responsibility, according to a prestigious international survey.

It is the fourth time the school has retained the top national spot in the Beyond Grey Pinstripes ranking, an independent biennial survey of the world’s Top 100 MBAs focused on social and environmental impact conducted by The Aspen Institute in the US.

In the 2011 survey, Nottingham also outstrips all other UK business schools — and comes in at 23 globally — in the research element of the ranking, which judges faculties on the quality of its research output incorporating social, ethical and environmental business issues.

Professor Martin Binks, Dean of Nottingham University Business School, said: “I am delighted that The Aspen Institute ranking confirms our leadership among UK business schools in fully integrating sustainability and corporate social responsibility issues into our MBA curriculum and faculty research.

“Sustainability in business is having a significant impact on organisations and it is vital that we equip our graduates with the knowledge and skills to deal with complex business environments.”

Nottingham has been a leader in sustainable and ethical business teaching and research since it launched its International Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility almost 10 years ago in 2002. When it launched its MBA in Corporate Social Responsibility a year later it became the first course of its kind in the UK.

Since then, the addition of a taught MSc in CSR and modules in areas as diverse as ethical finance, corporate governance, social entrepreneurship, and sustainable management running through its undergraduate, postgraduate, and executive education programmes, the Business School has become a major draw for students and organisations interested in sustainable business practices.

Nottingham University Business School boasts some of the world’s leading experts on CSR topics such as reporting and diversity, education and the impact that it is having on the corporate landscape in Asia.

For the 2011-12 Beyond Grey Pinstripes ranking, 149 schools from 22 countries submitted information on the social and environmental elements of its courses, research, extracurricular activities, institutes and centres, joint degrees and specialisations.

The project team spent seven months analysing the data before arriving at its Top 100 ranking, which is broken down further into four main categories — the number of courses featuring relevant content; the proportion of students exposed to CSR content, business impact ie. the number of relevant courses that focus on the positive role for-profit business can play in social and environmental change; and the CSR-related research paper output.

The overall global top spot for the 2011 rankings went to US giant Stanford Graduate School of Business, while York University in Canada was found to be strongest for its ethical and sustainable research output.

Nottingham University Business School attained an overall global ranking of 45 and came in eighth among European institutions.