Sky’s the limit for Warwick Business School as it sets up base in The Shard

WARWICK Business School has taken out space in Europe’s tallest building in order to attract students looking to conduct their studies in London.

The school has leased the 17th floor of the 87-storey building The Shard and is running its MSc Human Resource Management & Employment Relations as a part-time course at its new London base from January 2015.

At 306 metres high, the Shard is the highest building in the EU and is situated in the heart of the London Bridge Quarter neighbourhood, one of London’s most vibrant districts in the City.

The new base will house a 100-seat lecture theatre and a smaller one at 60 seats, plus eight seminar rooms and an IT lab.

Founded in 1967 Warwick Business School currently attracts 6,500 students from 125 different countries and has recently begun work on a £30m state-of-the-art extension of its current facilities at the University of Warwick.

Dean Mark Taylor said: “We want to become the leading university-based business school in Europe and a base at The Shard will be another step towards that.

“We are already in Europe’s top bracket, but we want to keep pushing upwards and a presence in London will help us do that. Our mission is to produce and disseminate world-class research and world-class business leaders, plus provide a lifelong return on investment for our students and alumni.”

With its MBA ranked in the world’s top 25 by the Financial Times, Warwick Business School said it had decided to target the growing human resources industry.

Professor Taylor, who worked in the City as a managing director for BlackRock before taking over as Dean at WBS in 2010, added: “We have always been committed to the HR profession and have traditionally been seen as one of the top schools for HR in the country.

“We see HR as playing an increasingly important role in business especially as digital technology is slowly revolutionising the way we work. Our newly-formed Organisation and Human Resource Management group has seen many new academics arrive, making it one of the biggest research areas at Warwick Business School.

“The after effects of the global financial crisis are still being felt and so the demands on HR departments to provide the necessary impetus for the mobile and productive workforce that will keep companies competitive are increasing. We see HR expanding its influence in the future.”

The course includes full Chartered Institute for Personnel & Development (CIPD) accreditation, which is increasingly becoming a pre-requisite for a career in HR management in many UK organisations.

Warwick Business School has more Academic Fellows of the CIPD than any other business school in the UK, with 10 now awarded the status.

Professor of HRM, Kim Hoque, said the school placed a strong emphasis on international, strategic and comparative perspectives, allowing students to critically examine key institutions and HR procedures.

“We are committed to leading edge HR thinking and knowledge to keep our students abreast of all the contemporary issues,” said Prof Hoque.

“Our course provides an excellent grounding in both the theory and practice of HR and employment relations and will be relevant to students whether they want to work in human resource management, general management, unions, consultancy or research.

“To put a course like this on part-time at our new London base shows how much value WBS places on HR and its role as a vital influence within businesses and organisations.”

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