MBA Master of Business Administration

• An Honours degree
  Or 
• an equivalent EU/international qualification
  And normally at least three years of relevant professional experience.

AP(E)L – Accreditation of Prior (Experiential) Learning

Exceptionally applicants who do not meet these course entry requirements may still be considered. The course team will consider each application that demonstrates additional strengths and alternative evidence. This might, for example, be demonstrated by:

• Related academic or work experience
• The quality of the personal statement
• A strong academic or other professional reference
• Or a combination of these factors.

Each application will be considered on its own merit but cannot guarantee an offer in each case.

For fees and funding information, please see website 

The World Economic Forum consulted business leaders from major global organisations for its The Future of Jobs Report (2016). It concluded that the ten skills that an employee will need by 2020 are:

• Complex problem solving
• Critical thinking
• Creativity
• People management
• Coordinating with others
• Emotional intelligence
• Judgement and decision making
• Service orientation
• Negotiation
• Cognitive flexibility.

The MBA embeds these in its curriculum.

The course aims to prepare graduates for the next step in their careers, whether it be a transformational senior management role within their current industry, or a new role in a completely new field of work. Entrepreneurial students are encouraged to set up their own businesses.

The emphasis on positive transformation, and a socially-motivated desire to change the world, coupled with a solid understanding of business and management will create graduates who are keen to bring about fundamental innovation and systemic change.

With this MBA, students will be able to transfer their skills within their current industry, or across industries. With developed managerial competences and innovation practice, graduates will be able to seek employment or further their career opportunities in positions that apply design thinking to complex problems, and take a holistic view of business issues. With developed leadership capacities, they will be able to combine ‘thinking’ and ‘doing’ with robust knowledge and application in organisations.

Unit 1: Orientation and Provocation (20 credits) 

Unit 1 begins by orienting you in the learning culture of the course, unpacking creative explorations from the art school and data-driven analytics of the business school. The unit explores the intersection of creative arts and business practices and the potential of this meeting space to celebrate diversity and establish discourse. You will engage in collaborative group-work to experience the value of effective teamwork and the changing roles of leadership. The unit also introduces one of the core themes of the course – personal transformation and positive change – and how to achieve this through creative strategies, experiential and peer learning, and the development of networks across the MBA community.  

Unit 2: Strategy and Systems (20 credits)  

The aim of this unit is to critically examine and provide insights into the practices and processes of strategic management within a variety of private and public sector organisations and small and medium sized enterprises, including creative and design industries. Case studies introduce core concepts of business management and systems approaches to business model innovation and development, while workshops introduce you to the application and value of creative methodologies as systematic and iterative processes in creative problem solving. You will begin to explore innovation practice, risk analysis and the relationship between strategies and systems against the economic, societal and ecological contexts in which they sit. The unit introduces the principles that guide decision-making by anticipating future impact and developing appropriate scales of action.  

Unit 3: Collaborative Practices for Common Good (20 credits)  

The aims of this unit are to explore the potential of collaborative practice and to equip you with the ability to apply interdisciplinary approaches through collective agency. It supports you in building communities of practice across the College, drawing on interdisciplinary expertise and group working methods from a breadth of disciplines. The unit explores how relational and networked-based practices can create positive impact, based on a shared concern for a specific place, space or community of humans and non-humans, in order to create common and shared well-being (social, economic and environmental). 

Unit 4: Finance and Impact (20 credits)  

In this unit you will explore existing and alternative business models and finance systems by investigating the impact of macroeconomics and geopolitics, examples of positive social change, and social and cultural enterprise. Case studies and workshops will introduce you to key principles and contemporary issues in management and empirical finance, including financial management and reporting, small business finance, and financial modelling.  The unit also considers thought leadership on the future of finance and assurance in relation to sustainability, scarcity, carbon literacy, resources and resourcing, and the impact on people and planet, and planet-centric design strategies including circular design and regenerative design.  

Unit 5: Effecting Change – Entrepreneurship in Action (40 credits)  

This unit explores the ways creative practice, innovation and entrepreneurship intersect and contemplates how to bring about positive change. You will explore the development of enterprise, entrepreneurs as individuals and teams, and how to see and formalise opportunities – how do we identify the need for change and for whom is the change beneficial? How do businesses understand changing customer demands and the move towards more ethical/sustainable business models? This unit involves the interrogation of key theories and emerging models of social enterprise for positive social change, asking you to analyse and critically evaluate success criteria. You will be challenged to engage with industry networks and contemplate the implications of technological and economic paradigm shifts, such as automation or AI, and learn how to develop vision and originality in identifying business opportunities and strategic thinking. You will apply models of business innovation and social engagement through the live project, integrating design in the communication of your project to be persuasive to specialist and non-specialist audiences.  

Unit 6: Application: Extended Live Project or Dissertation (60 credits)  

This final unit acts as a culmination to your learning and will take the form of either a self-directed live project or dissertation. It asks you to draw upon the networks you have established to design and investigate an original research question or proposition and to critically reflect on previously encountered theories, discourses and tools to develop new approaches to social challenges and organisational opportunities. Importantly, it requires you to consider and manage the ethical implications of your project, to critically evaluate existing scholarship and methodologies, consider alternative approaches, and respond constructively to uncertainty, unpredictability and ambiguity in the context of your academic or practice-based project. The extended live project is defined by the transfer and exchange of knowledge through external verification in the form of a symposium, public forum or project pitch. As an academic and theoretical exploration, the dissertation focuses on the contribution of knowledge through designing and developing processes, models and frameworks.  

Important note concerning academic progression through your course: If you are required to retake a unit you will need to cease further study on the course until you have passed the unit concerned. Once you have successfully passed this unit, you will be able to proceed onto the next unit. Retaking a unit might require you to take time out of study, which could affect other things such as student loans or the visa status for international students.