60 seconds with: Professor Simon Gaskell

For those who are new to the Global MBA and the University of London, can you describe Queen Mary’s involvement in the programme?

This MBA is a collaboration between the University of London and Queen Mary University of London.

The University of London brings considerable experience of delivering high quality distance-learning programmes.

At Queen Mary, what we bring is expertise in a number of areas which add up to what I think is a very distinctive aspect to this particular MBA programme.

How many schools from Queen Mary are involved in the academic direction of the Global MBA?

There is input from the School of Law (specifically the Centre for Commercial Law Studies), the School of Economics and Finance, and the School of Business and Management.

This input from a range of subject areas ensures different perspectives are brought to this programme to give it what we believe is a distinctive character.

How important is providing broader access to education?

In principle, the objective of providing education to the most talented individuals regardless of background applies equally whether we are talking about young people in the east end of London who are the first to attend university, or whether we’re thinking about individuals across the globe who face difficulties engaging in higher education.

This is a great opportunity to provide and indeed extend our mission in providing those educational opportunities to a much wider constituency.

How important will the Global MBA be in the current UK and international context?

The attention to globalisation and to international attitudes and experiences is extremely important.

The more we can do as leading educational institutions to contribute to the international character of our educational delivery, the better.

Professor Gaskell joined Queen Mary as Principal in October 2009. He is also Chair of the Board of the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) and is a Board Member of Universities UK.