CIO finishing school set to open doors

City University London is setting up a centre dedicated to training the next generation of CIOs.

The centre will provide short courses and ultimately a Masters-level qualification for mid-career IT professionals looking to develop themselves and acquire the skills to move up the IT ladder.

The centre's creator, Dr Andrew Tuson, head of computing at City University London, told silicon.com: "What education hasn't addressed is the technical management side of the IT profession where we need people who have an understanding of how technology affects businesses and how you can use that to actually make the big decisions needed at the top of the IT profession."

Short courses on topics likely to impact CIOs - such as strategic alignment, vendor management and compliance - will be offered towards the end of 2009.

The centre will be able to draw on expertise from other schools within the university, including the Cass Business School and City Law School, when developing the courses.

"We'd also like to build a Masters-level degree which will take mid-career IT professionals and develop them as leaders. In other words, it would be the equivalent of an MBA for the heights of the IT profession," Tuson said.

This Masters-level qualification is likely to be offered from the beginning of the 2010/11 academic year. As the courses will be aimed at experienced IT professionals, they will focus more on strategy than technical training.

The other part of the centre's work will focus on research, with academics from the university working in conjunction with the government as well as other IT organisations to carry out research and compile information on a range of subjects.

The research is aimed at helping IT chiefs to construct policy on various issues such as IT governance, business processes, strategy, innovation, outsourcing and the environment.

"We think that by doing this we can actually make a real change to how the senior IT profession not only develops its future leaders but also engages in the issues that are going to shape its future," Tuson said.

The centre is currently in the process of recruiting a director after which it will start to apply for research contracts.

"The vision is we need to bring all of these disciplines into one place because it isn't just about computer science, it's much more important than that," Tuson concluded.

Check out the cream of the crop from the current generation of the UK's CIOs in the silicon.com CIO50 2009 special report.