The Cems and Qtem masters in management

The elite Cems alliance programme offers an additional competitive qualification to the masters in management diploma to 1,300 students globally each year at 33 member schools.

Alumni of Cems — the Global Alliance in Management Education — on average strongly outperformed those from all business schools taking part in the FT 2023 Masters in Management Ranking process and those who studied for a rival supplementary qualification, Qtem.

Cems graduates had significantly higher earnings, greater salary progression and an increased likelihood of achieving their study aims.

The Cems schools are linked by a quality assurance system and students meet requirements including a second language, take a common set of courses and study at two member institutions. The students also work on a consultancy project and complete an internship at one of 73 corporate partners. Half are recruited by these organisations after finishing.

Schools have a higher proportion of faculty with doctorates than the average among all participating institutions, but a marginally lower percentage of female students and faculty, and a significantly lower share of international students and faculty.

A very different but also significant formal partnership between schools offering an additional specialist qualification is the more technical Quantitative Techniques for Economics and Management (Qtem) alliance. Its alumni this year earned less than the overall average in participating schools or those in the Cems programme.

Qtem was created in 2012 and includes some 24 business schools and more than a dozen corporate partners. It offers about 200 students a year training in at least two locations, with a focus on developing analytical and quantitative techniques, and includes practical experience.

The programme is mainly in Europe, but has partners in China, Japan, Canada and Australia, and ambitions to expand in North and South America. It includes a compulsory global business analytics challenge with online courses and international group work.

The FT does not include averaged outcomes from the two alliances’ specialist qualifications within its overall MiM ranking. Instead, the data is shown here separately, based on answers provided by a sample of alumni from the two programmes across participating schools who answered our questionnaire.