The University of Edinburgh Business School enjoys a long tradition of teaching and research. The School offers undergraduate, postgraduate and executive education programmes in business and management and provides a platform for research, discussion and debate on a wide range of business issues.
We are in the top 1% of business schools in the world to hold triple accreditation. These have been awarded by:
– The US Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB)
– The European Quality and Improvement System (EQUIS)
– The Association of MBAs (AMBA)
The Business School offers academically rigorous and highly crafted programmes for undergraduate, postgraduate and PhD students. The teaching and research cover six main subject areas, which are: accounting & finance, entrepreneurship & innovation, management science & business economics, marketing, organisational studies and strategy & international business.
The School’s research mission is to produce theory-led, practically relevant research that addresses contemporary organisational and management challenges faced by businesses, public organisations, regulatory bodies, and policy-makers. Our research strategy is focused on creating and sustaining a supportive, collaborative, and vibrant research culture through raising the quality and quantity of our research output and by developing and managing all faculty to achieve our goals.

Contacts:

Professor Sarah Cooper

Professor Sarah Cooper

Chair in Entrepreneurship & Enterprise Development and Head of Entrepreneurship & Innovation Group
Sarah joined the University of Edinburgh Business School as a Senior Lecturer in Entrepreneurship in September 2008 and was promoted to her Chair of Entrepreneurship and Enterprise Development in 2013. Prior to joining the University of Edinburgh she held positions as Senior Lecturer in Entrepreneurship at the University of Strathclyde, Lecturer in Strategy at Heriot-Watt University, and Research Associate in Business Organisation at Heriot-Watt University.

Sarah’s main research interests lie in entrepreneurship education and factors influencing new venture creation and growth. She was awarded her PhD in Business for her research on the location and growth of high technology small firms. Sarah’s teaching experience spans undergraduate, postgraduate and continuing professional development communities, primarily in the United Kingdom and United Arab Emirates. She has worked extensively in the area of Technology Commercialisation with Masters and Doctoral students from engineering and science and with MBA, MSc and continuing professional development groups in the field of New Venture Creation.

Sarah was the Director of Undergraduate Programmes for the Business School from 2011 to 2014, and is currently Head of the School’s Entrepreneurship and Innovation Group. In addition, she is also a member of the University of Edinburgh Business School Executive Team and of the University Court.

Professor Richard T Harrison

Professor Richard T Harrison

Professor Richard Harrison is Professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation and Co-Director of the Centre for Strategic Leadership at the University of Edinburgh Business School. He was previously Dean of Queen’s University Management School and Founding Director of the Leadership Institute there. Previously he was Dixons Professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the University of Edinburgh and has also held Chair level appointments in Strategy and Executive Development at the University of Aberdeen and University of Ulster. He has also taught and delivered executive programmes in China, Argentina, Australia, the US and Canada.

Richard is a world-leading authority on business angel and early stage venture finance and has advised governments, development agencies and business groups internationally on risk capital and venture finance issues. He has lectured, advised and consulted on the development of the business angel and early stage risk capital market in the UK (for UK Business Angels Association, HM Treasury, LINC Scotland, Department of Business Innovation and Skills, Scottish Enterprise, NE Access to Finance – his work led to the introduction of the first business angel networks in England in the late 1980s, and later to the first investment readiness programmes, and he wrote the first handbook on how to set up and operate a business angel network) and internationally (for OECD, EU, Six Countries InterGovernmental Programme, Department of Industry Canada, and in Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Austria and China). He is a regular speaker at business angel conferences, including those organised by EBAN, Business Angels Europe, UKBAA, Angel Capital Alliance (US) and Asia Business Angel Association.

In recognition of the importance of this research he is the 2015 recipient of the UK ESRC ((Economic and Social Research Council) Award for Outstanding Research Impact on Business (http://www.business-school.ed.ac.uk/about/news/2077).

His teaching and executive development experience concentrates on leadership development, innovation-based business development, strategy implementation and individual and organisational learning for CEOs and top management teams in entrepreneurial growth companies, significant family businesses and international corporations across a wide range of sectors and geographies.

At Edinburgh University he has led sessions on the Advanced Management Programme Scotland, on the KPMG MBA and on a range of sector and company specific innovation, strategy and corporate entrepreneurship programmes, including Scottish Enterprise (rural leaders programme), Peking University (social and sustainable business), REPSOL, Australia Competitiveness Commission and ARUP Partners.

His international experience includes significant work in China: he is a coordinator of the UK-China Entrepreneurship Competition, spearheads the China part of the UEBS internationalisation strategy (including the partnerships with Peking University and Tsinghua University), and has research and executive education associations with Wuhan University, Renmin University, Chongqing University and Chinese Academy of Science (Beijing).

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