WHILE diplomatic relations between Russia and Britain may have hit a low point, their business schools have never been on closer terms.

Leonid Evenko, rector of Moscow’s Graduate School of International Business (GSIB) and president of the Russian association of business education, sees the MBA as Russia’s passport to global markets. He says: “Our business is becoming much more open to the world market. Employers find they need Western technology and Western management ideas. For them it is really important.”

The MBA has been growing in influence since the first Russian MBA was launched in 1999. So far, the Government has licensed 50 business schools to run the MBA programme. A few, such as GSIB, are large with about 400 part-time MBAs a year and a handful of full-time students. All teaching is in Russian and most students study part-time while working in managerial positions in state-owned enterprises such as Gazprom, or in national banks and multinationals.

Most of the top business schools are in Moscow and students fly from as far as Ukraine and Siberia to attend weekend programmes or intensive teaching workshops. This is why most Russian MBA students are on part-time executive programmes.

But it is only in the past five years that Russian MBAs have been considered on a par with those in the West thanks to improved teaching methods and better research. Eight schools are now accredited, including Sinerghia, Mirbis and GSIB, which was passed by the UK’s Association of MBAs last March. Last year Evenko hosted Amba’s annual conference in Moscow where Russian academics demonstrated that their MBA could hold its own with the best in the world.

Evenko says: “It was a demonstration that Britain’s educational community took Russia’s MBA seriously. It means that Russian employers understand better that internationally accredited programmes are the real thing.”

Peter Calladine, Amba’s accreditation services manager, is a frequent visitor to Russia. He says: “Amba is ready to help business schools to fight their corner with the Government. Russian business schools are developing fast. Amba has done its bit to boost accreditation by helping the Russian Association of Business Schools in its negotiations with the Government.”

The Government is now so pro-MBA it has paid to establish two new business schools, one at St Petersburg State University, president Putin’s alma mater, the other in Moscow.

Although the status of Russia’s home-grown MBA graduates is improving, international and UK business schools, quick to seize a business opportunity, have established joint ventures in Russia to offer internationally recognised MBAs delivered in English and Russian. OUBS has a long-established distance learning operation, Link, in conjunction with Russia’s International Institute of Management.

Link offers Open University validated MBAs. Henley Management College were co-founders of the International Management Institute St Petersburg (Imis), Russia’s best known private business school. Next year Henley will launch a Russian MBA in partnership with Imis with the first MBA class open next year.

George Tovstiga, Henley professor of strategy and innovation management, says: “We are a global player and Imis sees a joint venture with Henley as a way to bring a high quality flexible MBA to the Russian market.” Links between UK and Russian business schools at academic level and through student exchanges are seen as the best way of helping Russian business schools raise their game.

Napier University Business School in Edinburgh, for example, has an agreement with the State University of Russia in Moscow that will allow State University’s MBAs on to the third year of NUB’s flexible MBA programme to gain a British MBA.

RUSSIAN STEEL MAKER TAKES COILS TO NEWCASTLE

EVGENY VASILIYEV, 27, manager of strategic planning at Severstal, a Russian steel producer, is studying a bespoke part-time MBA at Newcastle Business School, Stephen Hoare writes.

“The programme is intense, seven two-week residential courses with assignments in between. I am on my last assignment with just a dissertation to write before graduation. I got promotion a year into my MBA and now I am studying new markets for steel and collecting information to find out how Severstal can satisfy demand for flat, sheet and coil steel. We are an international company with operations in Italy and the US but based in Cherepovets between Moscow and St Petersburg.

“The MBA is very popular in Russia at present among managers at all levels. My company sponsor me but in return I have to agree to stay with the company for three years after completing my MBA.

“I think the Newcastle MBA is well constructed. There is a good use of lectures, seminars and classes, and brainstorming in groups is very useful.”

Times Recommends

• Inspirational leadership
• How to get a new job
• The reluctant CEO