Madrid business school named Europe’s best

Madrid’s IE Business School has just been named Europe’s best by the Financial Times while two other Spanish institutes also help round out the UK business daily’s top ten.

In a crisis-bucking trend, Madrid’s prestigious IE moved up the FT’s business school rankings three places from last year’s number 4 spot. By doing so, the school also managed to knock France’s HEC Paris off a lofty perch it had held for six straight years.

There was even more good news for Spain with the University of Navarra’s IESE Business School claiming the FT’s number 6 spot and Barcelona’s ESADE coming in at number 7.

The Financial Times bases its ranking on schools’ performance across five programs – MBAs, executive MBAs, masters in management and open and custom executive education. To do this, the paper looks at the average salaries of graduates once they are three years out of the school but also awards extra points to school with a more international student mix.

Faculties get extra brownie points if they can boast of higher percentages of women and foreign teachers on staff while having a higher proportion of teachers with doctorates also pushes up a school’s rankings.

IE greeted the news of the Financial Times gong by saying the result consolidated their position as one of the best business schools in the world in terms of postgraduate education in business management.

Meanwhile, ESADE dean Alfons Sauquet told La Vanguardia newspaper that the result reflected the school’s dedication to excellence and its capacity to adapt in times of crisis.