THE Cox Review of Creativity in Businesswas published in December 2005. Among its findings, the report noted that the UK needed to improve its creative capabilities. One way to do this, it suggested, was for the education process to allow more interaction between subjects and to develop “centres of excellence for multidisciplinary courses that combine management studies, engineering and technology with design and the creative arts.”

If one of the most important objectives of a masters postgraduate education is to prepare the student for work-place, then the needs of business must be reflected in the curricula. Two years after the Cox review, as companies increasingly implement cross-functional structures and rely on teams that stretch across functional silos, UK universities are taking some significant steps towards providing interdisciplinary masters programmes.

Ceridwyn Bessant, the associate dean of postgraduate programmes at Newcastle Business School (NBS) at Northumbria University, says: “The multidisciplinary, or interdisciplinary masters, is an essential approach if we are to meet some of the challenges presented by the global market economy, Within business and management, for example, we don’t operate within a single-discipline arrangement. Business and management cross many different sectors and types of organisation. We need to embrace the expertise that comes from other subject disciplines.”

At Northumbria University, the business school is working with the schools of arts and social sciences, and in particular the criminology subject division, developing a postgraduate programme on criminal justice management, bringing criminology and management experts together.

NBS is also collaborating with both the design and engineering schools to develop a multidisciplinary initiative around the idea of innovation leadership. Bessant adds: “It is exciting getting experts together to develop a truly integrative curriculum, with problem based learning or projects, combining engineering, design, and business and management, at its heart.”

NBS is just one example among many. While this special report on masters programmes does not focus on interdisciplinary programmes specifically, it is worth noting that some of the programmes featured offer an opportunity to study beyond the core subject discipline.

Judging by the latest trends in the corporate world, this is an option that many business and masters students should consider carefully, when deciding which programme to study.

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