Department profile
The Department is the longest established in the UK and the first chair in Marketing was instituted in Lancaster in 1965, partly funded by the Institute of Marketing. In the early years the Department's teaching was entirely focused in a successful MA programme with a strong project component based on 'real-world' company problems. The Department started a successful undergraduate degree scheme in Marketing and in 1994 launched a new Advertising and Marketing degree scheme. In September 2004 the MSc in Advanced Marketing Management was launched. It is unique in its focus on candidates with significant academic or work-based experience of marketing. Over the last ten years, the Department has also attracted an increasing number of doctoral students pursuing research in areas close to the Department's main research strengths.
Subjects
The Department covers a wide range of subdisciplines within Marketing. There are two main areas of research in the Department. The first area is consumer behaviour, where research focuses on the meaning and experience of consumption in individuals' everyday lives. The second main area is concerned with business marketing and purchasing. In particular, the Department has made significant contributions to the study of business markets as networks of interorganisational relationships.
The Department has a major class of around 130 undergraduate students and offers a wide range of full and half unit courses in Part II. The Part I course, taken and assessed in the first year, has a quota intake of about 180 students. Most, but not all, of the non-majors take other Management School subjects. The course is innovative in design in that the second term and third terms comprise a computer-based market research project simulation which involves students designing and administering questionnaires and then analysing and presenting the results.
In 2004/5 the Department launched an innovative MSc in Advanced Marketing Management programme which has attracted a large number of applications. The Department has a reputation for high quality teaching and innovation in teaching methods.
Management School
The Department forms an active part of Lancaster University Management School, a faculty which represents about 20% of the University and has six departments: Accounting and Finance, Organisation, Work & Technology, Economics, Management Learning, Management Science and Marketing. Working together, these departments run a wide range of both generalist and specialist programmes, including an MBA, undergraduate degrees in business administration as well as specialist schemes in Marketing and Advertising & Marketing.
Lancaster University Management School has a 20-year reputation for producing world-leading research. LUMS has been at the top, or close to the top, of the HEFCE research assessment exercises since 1992.
