European business schools ranking: Methodology and key

The 10th annual Financial Times ranking of European business schools evaluates the combined performance of Europe’s leading schools across four FT rankings in 2013: full-time MBA, executive MBA, masters in management and non-degree executive education programmes. The ranking is a measure of the quality and breadth of programmes. The masters in finance rankings is not included.

The European ranking is calculated with equal weighting of schools’ performances in the four rankings, each accounting for 25 per cent. (For executive education, rankings of customised and open programmes account for 12.5 per cent each.)

Only schools that participated in all of these rankings are eligible for a full score. A school that took part in one ranking is eligible for only one-quarter of the total score, and so on. Those that participated in only one ranking with a degree offered jointly with another school are not eligible to feature.

Tables of European schools are created for each ranking. Schools that met all criteria to be ranked but were placed outside of the published table (the top 100 for MBA programmes, for example) are reinstated. Programmes are awarded an indexed score, relative to their performance compared with all European programmes in that ranking. This score is awarded to the school.

If ranked on the basis of a joint programme, a school receives a share of the score proportional to the number of partner schools. For example, if a European school offers a ranked programme in partnership with a non-European peer, a half score is given.

If a school is represented by two or more programmes within one ranking, a combined weighted score is awarded. If a school did not participate in a given ranking, a score of zero is given.

Scores are not simply based on aggregation of published ranking positions. They are calculated using Z-scores – formulae that reflect the range between the top and bottom school – for the individual criteria that compose each component ranking.

The constituent rankings are calculated according to different criteria and weightings, each detailed in respective methodologies. Owing to limited space, only selected, heavily weighted criteria are included in this published combined table.

Indexed scores awarded for each ranking are added together, according to the equal weighting outlined above, creating a combined total for each school. This score is divided by the number of rankings in which a school features to calculate an average score – a derived measure of quality. This is added to the combined total score to generate each school’s final score by which the schools are ranked.

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Judith Pizer of Jeff Head Associates acted as the FT’s database consultant.

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Key to the 2013 ranking

Weights for ranking criteria are shown in brackets as a percentage.

MBA (25):

European Rank 2013: position among European schools within the FT Global MBA 2013 ranking.

Salary today $: average alumni salary three years after graduation, US$ by purchasing power parity (PPP). Includes weighted data from the current and two previous years, where available.

Salary increase: percentage increase in average alumni salary pre-MBA to today, three years after graduation. Includes weighted data from the current and two previous years, where available.

EMBA (25):

European Rank 2013: position among European schools within the FT Executive MBA 2013 ranking.

Salary today $: average three years after graduation, US$ PPP. Includes weighted data from the current and two previous years, where available.

Salary increase: percentage increase in average alumni salary pre-EMBA to today, three years after graduation. Includes weighted data from this and two previous years, where available.

Masters in Management (25):

European Rank 2013: position among European schools within the FT Masters in Management 2013 ranking.

Salary today $: average alumni salary three years after graduation, US$ PPP. Includes weighted data from the current and two previous years, where available.

Executive Education

Open programmes: European Rank 2013 (12.5): position among European schools within the FT Executive Education ranking of open-enrolment programmes in 2013.

Custom programmes: European Rank 2013 (12.5): position among European schools within the FT Executive Education ranking of customised programmes in 2013.

Female faculty: percentage of women.

International faculty: percentage of faculty whose citizenship differs from their country of employment.

Faculty with doctorates: percentage of full-time faculty with a doctoral degree.