Chrisopher Saund

Lancaster University Management School is to deliver a third of its full-time MBA programme in central London, including several projects and career development coaching, as well as courses in accountancy and finance.

Christopher Saunders, full-time MBA director at Lancaster, said the school was finding it increasingly difficult to recruit MBA students because its location in the northwest of England was so far away from the UK’s major recruitment markets. There are just 31 students enrolled in the class of 2014.

“We thought we would have a much better offer if we did the MBA in London,” says Mr Saunders.

Lancaster is the latest UK regional school to announce a move to London. In January, Warwick Business School announced it would launch a London campus in the Shard, the capital’s tallest building.

And two of the most highly-rated London schools, London Business School and Cass, have announced expansion plans in the city. London Business School has recently begun the multimillion pound refurbishment of Old Marylebone Town Hall as a teaching facility, which will increase its teaching space by 70 per cent. Cass has also recently opened additional teaching facilities in the City for executive short courses.

Unlike Warwick, which will teach part-time versions of its MBA, MSc in Finance and MSc in Human Resource Management in London, as well as executive short courses, Lancaster will use its facilities at the Work Foundation, close to Victoria station, for modules on its full time MBA. (The Work Foundation in London was acquired by Lancaster University in 2010.)

“What I want to [achieve] is a blend of using Lancaster for the right reasons and London for the right reasons,” says Mr Saunders. In particular, the Lancaster venue, close to the Lake District, one of the UK’s national parks where poet William Wordsworth and children’s writer Beatrix Potter penned their works, will be the venue for the more reflective elements of the one-year degree, including the school’s “Mindful Manager” programme.

Lancaster is also expected to teach executive programmes in London.

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