Professor Tony Brabazon Dean of UCD College of Business
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Breakfast Business with Enterprise Ireland on Newstalk. Welcome back to Breakfast Business with Susan Hayes-Cullerton in for Joe Lynham today. Now, for 10 consecutive years, UCD Michael Smurfett Graduate Business School has been listed in the top 10, 30 business schools as ranked by the Financial Times. Now, this is considered the ranking of rankings in terms of measuring business schools quality. And the latest Financial Times European Business Schools rankings placed UCD Smurfett School at 23rd. So joining me to discuss this now is Professor Tony Brabazon, Dean of UCD College of Business. Well, first of all, good morning, Professor Tony. What a way to wake up today with such an achievement.
Good morning, Susan. Certainly, yes, it's the beginning of a good week and a very busy week. We have a lot of students graduating actually over the next two days.
What recent achievement has UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School accomplished?
So this certainly is a very good start to the week.
Well, is it any wonder you're up this hour of the morning in that case? So first of all, can you talk us through the prestige of the award itself and the fact that you have won it for 10 years in a row now? Tell us exactly what's involved in this.
Well, every year, the Financial Times compile a list of the top 100 business schools in Europe. And to put that into context, there are just under 4,000 business schools across the entire continent. So getting into the top 100 is quite an achievement in itself. Now, the list gets compiled from five individual program rankings, which cover the MBA program, some of our MSc programs, and also executive education. So of all of the rankings, this is the one that we watch most closely every year because, as you mentioned, this is the gold standard because it looks at your program quality and, most importantly, the outcomes to your students over a range of your programs. So it's an incredibly demanding ranking to perform well in.
How does the Financial Times ranking assess business school quality?
Well, I did take a look at what the rankings involved and they said things like graduate outcomes, which include salary and career progress, the quality of research, international and gender diversity of students and faculty. So I was wondering, Tony, do you simply do the best job you can and then hope that you meet these or do you go the other way around and seek to meet these parameters and therefore assume that these are the things that determine that international and global standard?
Well, ultimately, about half of each of the rankings is driven by student outcomes. And that has to be our prime goal when we're looking at programs and designing them for students. We want our students to do as best they can when they come out. And critical aspects of student outcomes, which the FT look at, are salary advance, career advance, whether graduates feel that the programme met their aims. So really, you look to do the best you can in terms of student outcomes, and then we view the rankings as taking care of themselves. So we don't manage to the rankings, but obviously what the rankings measure is important from our students' perspective.
Yeah, so it sounds like there's alignment there across the board. OK, now the FT has some data out this morning around demand for business schools. And I'm just going to take a quick trip around the world and then ask you for your reaction. So applicants to US business schools slipped 1% this year. Demand for places at European schools rose 11% outside of the UK. And within the UK, demand fell by 4%. And all of that comes from a Graduate Management Admission Council. What trends are you seeing about incoming students?
Well, certainly you put your finger on something which is really, really interesting in the international business school world at the moment. I'm over 30 years in UCD, and obviously I've been looking at student recruitment trends over all that time, and I have never seen an environment which is as dynamic and as volatile as it is at the moment. Obviously, when we look at the news on a daily basis, we're seeing geopolitical upheavals. We're seeing pressure in certain countries in terms of visas for students and so on.
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