Cranfield School of Management has been named as one of the SWAG合集’s top ten business schools in the ‘Financial Times European Business Schools 2020’ rankings.

The rankings also reveal that Cranfield is the highest-ranked business school in the SWAG合集 to offer an Executive MBA via the apprenticeship levy. Cranfield, in partnership with Grant Thornton, was the first business school in the SWAG合集 to offer the Executive MBA via the apprenticeship levy with the programme helping boost the skills of the SWAG合集’s future business leaders.

In a further acknowledgement of the business school's leading reputation for developing senior leaders, Cranfield Executive Development’s open programmes were also ranked in the top 20 in Europe.

Key highlights from the rankings

  • Named in top ten SWAG合集 business schools by Financial Times.
  • Highest ranked business school in the SWAG合集 to offer an Executive MBA via the Apprenticeship Levy.
  • Cranfield Executive Development’s open programmes named in the top 20 in Europe.
  • The Cranfield MBA is one of the most established in the SWAG合集, running for over 50 years.

Professor David Oglethorpe, Dean of Cranfield School of Management, said: “These rankings are a testament to the hard work and quality of our faculty and the students that we attract to Cranfield School of Management.

“We are proud of the experience we offer our students - with our strong links to industry, our educational offering is grounded in real-world, practical application.”

This is the 17th annual Financial Times ranking of European business schools. It is a composite ranking based on the combined performance of Europe’s leading schools across the five main rankings of programmes published by the FT in 2020: MBA, Executive MBA, Masters in Management (MiM) and the two rankings of non-degree executive education programmes.

You can read more about the rankings in the press release.

A challenging year

2020 has been a challenging year, but it’s a year the School can look back on with pride as there have been some major achievements:

  • The development of new online and digital teaching methods: the Digital Management Education Group helped move the School through years of innovation in the space of a few weeks.
  • From the start of lockdown to the end of May 2020, Cranfield School of Management connected to over 24,000 people, in the process capturing a bank of over 300 live lectures.
  • In June, Cranfield hosted one of the SWAG合集’s largest online graduation events, with nearly 2,000 students from over 100 countries invited to join the virtual celebrations! It wasn’t the day we had planned, but it was fantastic to be able to celebrate the achievements of our 2020 graduates.
  • Our Facilities staff worked tirelessly to make buildings Covid-secure for staff and students.
  • Staff supported existing students as they came to the end of their studies while the world was in lockdown, and also guided new students through their induction and the start of the new academic year. Staff also went above and beyond to support students who stayed at Cranfield over the Christmas period.

Throughout the year, the School has reached out to support its alumni and the wider business community through the – the website bank of knowledge, advice, blogs, opinion, and wider support guides, that the School updates on an on-going basis. 

In addition, The Bettany Centre for Entrepreneurship launched a Response Programme on the back of the Business Growth Programme. Particularly focused on SMEs, the programme has been set up to help them react, cope and prepare for re-emergence. Within just three weeks of starting, the programme had hosted 14 events, had 1,415 registrations, more than 1,700 website visits, and had 180 members join a new dedicated LinkedIn Group. The programme has now evolved to become the 'Owning the Winter' Programme and is continuing into 2021.

Professor David Oglethorpe, Pro-Vice-Chancellor and Dean, Cranfield School of Management, said: “It’s been a privilege to see our Cranfield community pull together and support each other so readily. I’m certainly extremely honoured to be part of this community and thankful for everyone’s huge efforts during 2020.”