The Marketing Department: Celebrating 50 Years

The Department of Marketing is marking 50 years this academic year - Head of Department Beverly Wagner reflects on progress and looks to the future.

As the first fully independent Marketing Department in the UK, celebrating our 50th Anniversary feels particularly poignant. Since our establishment in1971, we are widely acknowledged as one of the earliest seats of excellence in the Marketing field. This is a reputation we work hard to uphold and one which is acknowledged in our ranking as the No.1 Marketing Department in Scotland and No.3 in the UK in the 2022 Complete University Guide.

Reflecting on 50 Years

Our 50th Anniversary offers an opportunity to reflect on our progress to date. The Department was crucial in confirmation of Marketing as a discipline, as founder Professor Michael Baker, became the first Professor of Marketing in the UK to be appointed to a UGC funded chair. We have continued to support the development of Marketing via our involvement with international Marketing conferences IMP, EMAC, R&D Management), editorial (Journal of Marketing Management) and publication contributions to leading Marketing journals and collaboration with Marketing departments and industry partners around the world.

It is not just our staff who have made a mark, but many of our undergraduate, post graduate and doctoral students have made excellent progress and professional contributions in organisations around the world. Of particular mention is Dr Charles Huang who gained his PhD from the department in 1994 under the supervision of Professor Stephen Young. Global business leader Dr Huang recently acknowledged the critical role the department played in his education and career with a £50million transformational gift to the University of which £20 million has been allocated to Strathclyde Business School to set up the Stephen Young Institute for International Business.

Looking Forward

Today, we are a vibrant and growing community, building on the legacy of our enviable, established position as a top educator for Marketing in Scotland. As leaders in Marketing, we’re committed to producing internationally-renowned research across four central research clusters: Consumptions, Markets & Society; Organisations, Markets, Networks & Innovation; Digital Marketing, Tourism and Customer Research; and Strategic Marketing and Analytics. Our goal is to ensure this research is useful, generating real benefits for our students, practitioners and policy makers. We also look forward to further developing our industry links and strategic partners. Multi-disciplinary research and knowledge exchange is central to our department.

Celebrating 50 Years

As well as inviting reflection, our 50th Anniversary welcomes celebration. In August we launched our 50th Anniversary Research Series, featuring ten highly esteemed Marketing academics. We kicked off our '50 Miles for 50 Years Challenge', inviting colleagues and friends to get outside and get moving. The challenge also offers an opportunity to contribute to our 50th Anniversary Fundraiser with several charities that speak to our people-orientated and socially progressive values: Scottish Association for Mental Health; The Trussell Trust; and the Prince’s Trust. In December we received an impressive range of entries to our 50 Years of Teaching and Learning Competition from school pupils across Glasgow and we look forward to celebrating with the winning students in a prize giving. We are also delighted to mark our 50th Year with a tree planting this month: it is important that we take this opportunity to pay tribute to Professor Michael Baker and Professor Stephen Young, both of whom sadly died in 2021.

Join the Celebrations

We are all so proud of reaching the remarkable milestone of 50 years of our Marketing Department at Strathclyde Business School. We are delighted to welcome you all to celebrate with us, whether via our 50 Miles for 50 Years challenge or by sharing any goodwill messages or memories working with the department. You can keep up with all our celebrations via our LinkedIn Group, Twitter or Webpage.

Finally, a brief thank you to all our colleagues, for their support and contributions. It is our community spirit and commitment that makes the Department of Marketing a special place to work.

About Beverly Wagner

Beverly is Head of the Department of Marketing and was previously Director of the department's highly-successful postgraduate programmes. Beverly joined the Department of Marketing in September 2007. Her research interests relate to supply chain management with a focus on inter and intra firm collaboration and innovation management, specifically open innovation processes and implementation.