St Andrews announces plans for world-leading business school

The University of St Andrews has announced plans to create a world-leading Business School by bringing together its highly ranked Schools of Economics & Finance and Management under one new structure.

The new Business School will provide the University’s internationally renowned experts in economics, finance and management with the environment, investment and support to respond most effectively to the post-pandemic, climate-emergency agendas and new economic, social and political challenges.

Both Schools at St Andrews are currently ranked in the top 5 of their subject areas in the UK.

The St Andrews Business School will:

• Focus on research, teaching, policy and practice development in Finance, Economics and Management as three interlinked subject areas.
• Be outward facing and facilitate engagement with local, national and international partners in the private, public and third sectors.
• Build on the outstanding research-led teaching and a first-class student experience of the two current Schools across all levels, from undergraduate to postgraduate and beyond.
• Reach new audiences through improved dissemination of research, digital education, and raising St Andrews’ profile and reputation for high quality.
• Capitalise on St Andrews’ compact size and location to achieve distinctive, interdisciplinary activities in which each component benefits from its integration with the others.

St Andrews has 80 full-time permanent academic staff across Economics & Finance and Management, and has begun discussions with staff about the vision for the new Business School, and ways in which they can bring two structures together to enhance each other’s complementary strengths.

The University sees this as an investment in key academic and professional service strengths, rather than any attempt to trim resources, and there will be no compulsory redundancies as a result of the move.

There will be no change to teaching programmes or degrees awarded to currently enrolled students or students who have accepted a place to study at either School.

Engagement and planning with staff, students and other key stakeholders will continue through Spring 2023, before a period of transition from two Schools to one begins in summer 2023.

St Andrews has appointed Deputy Principal, Professor Brad MacKay, as Interim Dean of the Business School, to oversee the initial structural changes and building of collaborative activities.

The formal transition to a single School will conclude in September 2024 with the appointment of a new Dean of the Business School and the launch of a fully integrated School, including new Masters and executive education programmes.

In the medium term, the new Business School will continue to have sites at different locations in St Andrews. The School of Economics & Finance is on The Scores while the School of Management is at the Gateway Building on the North Haugh. Both locations will come under the umbrella of the new Business School.

In 2027, it is hoped the Business School will move to a single site at New College, on the site formerly occupied by Madras College in South Street. The Business School will share that site with St Andrews’ world-leading School of International Relations.

The University is currently appointing architects for the flagship New College development, and will make an announcement on that project shortly.

“We are fortunate to count amongst our colleagues here at St Andrews some of the foremost academic authorities in management, finance, and economics,” said Principal and Vice-Chancellor, Professor Dame Sally Mapstone FRSE.

“We have a fantastic opportunity to create a new School to support those colleagues to apply their expertise in a world whose priorities and challenges shifted so rapidly during the pandemic, and continue to change now.

“Critically, it will encourage interdisciplinary research and teaching and, we hope, add to Scotland’s reputation as a centre of research and higher education excellence.

“The plan for the St Andrews Business School reflects our strategic priorities to be world-leading, sustainable and socially responsible, and we believe the vision which underpins it will resonate with local, national, and international stakeholders.”