THE University of Bradford’s School of Management has been named Business School of the Year.

The Educate North Awards said the title is in recognition of the School’s outstanding performance in the areas of financial performance, teaching, research, student experience, innovation and economic impact.

Prof Sankar Sivarajah, Head of the School, said: “This is a real testament for all of the dedication and hard work that our staff have contributed to the success of the School. This honour goes to our staff, students, and community. This is our commitment to excellence.”

Some of the key highlights that formed part of the awards submission included:-

• It’s Career Booster programme, which enables students to learn industry-relevant skills and take part in vocational training in areas such as AI and Big Data, psychometric testing and mock assessments - last year there were 1,350 Booster sessions involving over 7,500 hours of activities, with an increase of 35 per cent on bookings.

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• New programmes at the University co-created with industrial partners.

• School and college pupils have been involved in developing programmes of study in areas such as logistics, data analytics & supply chains (working with partners such as SAS, Google and ASDA)

• The School was also chosen to host the Amazon Web Services Academy, supporting students and delivering free digital skills development to local businesses as part of its community and business engagement strategy

One of the world’s original management schools, established in 1963, Bradford continues to be part of the elite group of triple-accredited institutions (AMBA, EQUIS and AACSB).

More recently the School became one of only six in the UK to receive the prestigious NHS Leadership Academy kitemark for Management Education.

In 2020 it was also the first business school to receive a joint accreditation by AMBA and BGA and its MBA was ranked No.1 in the world for value for money by the Financial Times.

85 per cent of the School’s students come from the most socio-economically diverse areas by postcode; around 70 per cent are from BME backgrounds and the University of Bradford was recently ranked #1 in England on the Social Mobility Index.

In addition, the School has identified several key objectives for the future, including an urgent need for Bradford to move away from a low-skills, low economy position towards raising educational aspirations and attainment in the local area; a need to tackle demographic decline in the number of 18 year olds nationally; and addressing the changing needs of employers, looking for flexibility, resilience, commercial nous and new skills relating to the digitisation of work, big data and AI.