The A-Z of Business Schools: University of Westminster Business School

Age: One as the Westminster Business School.

History: Management has been taught by the former Central London Poly, earlier the Regent Street Polytechnic, since the 1920s. A part-time MBA was introduced in 1984. The new Westminster Business School is a merger of the school of economic and business studies, which taught mostly undergraduates, and the management school, which taught mainly postgrads.

Address: Marylebone Road, opposite Madame Tussauds, and down the road from where Sherlock Holmes lived.

Ambience: Forbidding 1960s concrete campus has been given a facelift since its even more forbidding Eighties look. It's now painted white. There are ambitious plans to redevelop the site and to turn the old testing halls for building and construction into classrooms. Students are lively and cosmopolitan; there are all ages plus a lot from UK ethnic minorities and a lot from overseas, especially at Masters level.

Vital statistics: More than 3,000 students, half postgraduate/post-experience, in an institution with a long tradition of continuing part-time education. Runs four MBAs - a full-time, two part-time (evenings only or afternoon and evening) and one in design management distance learning. Permanent staff of 90, plus large number of visiting experts from business and the professions.

Added value: Innovative programmes for professional women returners, funded by the European Social Fund. You can do a 15-week course called "Women into Management" or another called "Professional Updating for Women". They're free and are designed to restore your self-confidence. The first course is for women who've had substantial management experience at middle or senior level, but there are only 16 places available. Research groups include the International Franchise Centre and the Future of Work.

Easy to get into? For an MBA course, you need a good first degree and at least three years' managerial experience.

Association of MBAs accreditation? Yes, for part-time and full-time MBAs but not for its MBA design management distance- learning course.

Glittering alumni: Mike Cronk, head of transmission, BBC World Service; David Powell, chief executive of Rother District Council; Richard Buxton, director of housing, Westminster Council; Lani Bannach, director at Global Liability Insurance, SBC Warburg; Graham Skeggs, director of business affairs, Hammer Films.

Research: It achieved the grade 3b (top grade is 5) in the research assessment exercise.

Teaching: Got a satisfactory rating from the higher education funding council.

Guru: Professor John Stanworth is a leading authority in the UK on franchises.

International connections: The majority of full-time Masters students are from abroad - 20 per cent from the EU, 20 per cent from Asia/Pacific region, 10 per cent from Africa, 10 per cent from Latin America and so on. Joint MBA with Montpellier, and MA in international finance with CERAM, Nice.

Student profile: Average age on full-time MBA is 28; on part-time it's 33. Male female ratio is 50:50.

Cost: Full-time MBA costs pounds 8,000; part-time pounds 3,650 a year (lasts two years)

Who's the boss? Prof Len Shackleton, economist and labour market expert, who writes about changing patterns of employment and top people's pay (when he's not reading thrillers and supporting Southport Football Club).

Next week: Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussees - Graduate School of International Business.