AACSB accreditation renewed for five more years

We are delighted to announce that Henley Business School has been re-accredited for the next five years – the highest level of such recognition – by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB).

This recognition by the AACSB maintains the place we have held since 2001 as one of the world’s leading business schools in holding all the major global business education accreditations, the others being AMBA and EQUIS which were both renewed in 2019.

Each of the accreditation bodies exists to raise the standards of business education; the accreditation process is rigorous and takes into account all aspects of the Henley experience, including teaching and learning, curricula, faculty and research, as well as Henley’s overall strategy and mission.

In its report, the AACSB said that Henley ‘is a world-class institution and is one of the finest in the UK’, praising ‘its entrepreneurial drive, its ability to see and seize opportunities, and its desire for continual improvement’.

The report specifically commends the following as noteworthy best practice:

• Henley’s alumni platform Henley Live, which is described as ‘a very impressive initiative’;
  
  
• A staff engagement initiative – the Henley Hives - which is described as ‘wonderfully creative’ and brings ‘academic and professional staff together’;

• the World of Work initiative, a series of annual conferences and events, research and thought leadership focused on the future of work; and

• Henley Careers and Professional Development, which has delivered ‘outstanding’ results.

In addition to these specific commendations, the report also highlighted:

• Henley’s very powerful brand and position in the international market;
  
  
• Henley’s engagement with the Apprenticeship Levy, which is testament to ‘Henley’s entrepreneurial drive and agility’;
  
  
• the review team’s conversations with professional staff, which highlighted ‘a high degree of collegiality and pride in working at Henley’;
  
  
• the range and quality of student support services;
  
  
• the highly collaborative nature of research activities within Henley, ‘which seems to have long been a feature of the School and part of its DNA’;
  
  
• Henley’s Impact Case Studies that have been submitted for the 2021 Research Excellence Framework, which ‘provided compelling evidence of a school committed to positive societal impact’ and that in addition, there were ‘numerous other examples of Henley’s commitment to positive societal impact’; and
  
  
• the ‘strong sense of community within the School and a desire to work across disciplinary boundaries…..an innate willingness to share best practice. Henley is, as one person put it, an institution that cares’.
  

Professor John Board, Dean of Henley Business School, comments:

“We are delighted that the AACSB has given us a glowing review in its report and has shown its support for our work by renewing our accreditation for five more years. The accreditation is the result of a comprehensive review of everything we do at Henley, from our strategy and vision to our research and knowledge, and our programmes and people. At the heart of it all is a desire to continuously improve upon everything we do to provide the best possible learning experience for our students as we prepare them to be effective business leaders upon graduation. This recognition from the AACSB means that we have now successfully renewed our accreditation from all three of the main international accreditation bodies, maintaining our status as a triple-crown business school, the highest level of endorsement for a global business school.”

Find out more about our accreditations here.