Growth of QBS

• Queen's Business School achieved triple accreditation status, after securing AACSB accreditation in 2025, putting QBS in the top 1% of business schools in the world.
• QBS also achieved reaccreditation of Small Business Charter for a five year period.
• We elevated our Athena Swan status to Silver, a prestigious recognition of our sustained commitment to advancing gender equality and promoting an inclusive environment for all.
• We launched three new postgraduate programmes: MSc AI in Business, MSc Digital Business, and MSc Finance and Trading.
• The QBS Student Hub won Northern Ireland Building of the Year.
• We proudly hosted host the PRME Chapter UK & Ireland Annual Conference.

Students

• We supported 2896 students enrolled at Queen's Business School: 2273 undergraduates, 541 postgraduate taught, 28 MBA, and 54 PhD research students.
• Over 300 post graduate students took part in a hands-on, transformative Community Impact Project with Sólás na nÓg, a Belfast based youth project.
• 256 students were coached by our dedicated Careers and Work Placement Office to secure career-enhancing placement opportunities.
• Our students have taken up work placements all over the world: from Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, to Spain, France, Germany, Austria, China, and the USA.
• The student QBS Connect team ran a number of events on professional and personal development for their peers, including employer pop-ups, headshot sessions, and skills workshops.
• Students were celebrated by QBS and the business community at the 2025 Prizegiving ceremony.

Research

Some research highlights from each of our academic departments in 2025:

• Accounting: CEO's Culture and Firms' Leverage Decisions
• Economics: Scarring and selection in the Great Irish Famine
• Finance: The legacy of the Northern Irish ‘Troubles’ on Disability Rolls
• International Business, Entrepreneurship, and Marketing: The CEO: The Rise and Fall of Britain's Captains of Industry
• Information Technology, Analytics, and Operations: Empowering marginalized communities: A framework for social inclusion
• Organisation, Work, and Leadership: Toward Inclusive Green Human Resource Management: An Identity‐Based Analytical Framework

Connections with Industry

• 185 employers recruited a placement student from QBS.
• In 2025, we sponsored: AIB Business Eye Awards, Business Eye Sustainability Awards, CIPD Awards, and the Women in Business NI Awards.
• We began a sponsorship relationship with Women in Business Young Women’s Network.
• QBS supported the NI Ethnic Minority Employment and Careers Conference, and moderated the UN Global Compact: Social Mobility Regional Consultation.
• In partnership with Chartered Accountants Ireland, we launched a new Executive Leadership Programme, an initiative designed to support accounting professionals.
• We hosted three Business Breakfast Insight sessions: on Sustainability 2030, global trade tariffs, and the relationship between employee wellbeing and organisational performance.

Global Reach

• The International Partnerships team at QBS nurtured 75 agreements across the world, in countries such as Finland, Indonesia, South Africa, and Spain. These cover recruitment and articulation, exchange and study abroad, and research agreements.
• The Vice Chancellor of Queen's University, the Dean of Queen's Business School, and QBS staff visited Narxoz University in Kazakhstan to meet senior leadership, talk to prospective students, and attend the official opening of the Business School.
• Three students from the School of Economics and Management at Narxoz University successfully completed their second year in Finance at QBS.
• Two new Bolashak Scholars joined QBS in 2025.
• QBS hosted three visiting International Fellows, from Dubai, China, and Harvard.
• Summer schools, study tours, and global opportunities took place in Copenhagen, Kazakhstan, Paris, Fiji, and Buenos Aires.

Goodbye 2025

A heartfelt thanks to our students, staff, and colleagues in academia and industry for being an active part of a community we are truly proud of. A special mention goes to our esteemed colleague and friend, Dr Hilary Downey, who sadly passed away this year. Our thoughts remain with her loved ones.