For Sue Cox, dean of Lancaster University Management School (Lums), the past seven years have been pretty successful. Building on the business school's reputation as one of a handful of top research business schools in the UK, Prof Cox has built up finances and student numbers across the board.

Since she took over the job she has doubled the income of the school, through fees and national and local research grants. A full-service business school - with undergraduate, masters, MBA, EMBA, PhD and executive education programmes - Prof Cox says that this year both applications and acceptances have increased by 25 per cent.