I agree with Mitra that as Scientists and head of programs we are involved in dealing with lots of administrative and management issues and MBA certainly can help to gain further knowledge in management that as doctors or scientist we don't learn.

At the risk of sounding naive (and perhaps health sciences are special in some way), I'd say you only need MBA if you want to go into administration.

MBA will definitely help any other ‘Science” stream profession, be it Medical or any other. Even if you’re an expert Medical Professional, the philosophy of management will be of great help.

Thanks, Omdeep.

Artur, please find MBA programs for healthcare, e.g here:

http://www.find-mba.com/specializations/15/health-care-pharmaceuticals-biotechnology?gclid=CIaqravL8bwCFWT4wgodjKEAsQ

If post of head of research center, rehabilitation center or clinical hospital can be interesting experience for experienced scientist-clinician? It seems reasonable, but if it is really?. Moreover many scientists during their scientific career manage their own businessess - it may be better and quicker way to manage own patents, etc. Where you can learn it all (with formal diploma)? Sometimes traditional postgraduate studies "Healthcare management" or "Research projects management" are not enough. Thus it seems MBA may be very useful.

Emilia, thanks for the link and the clarification. To make things clear, "administration" in my earlier answer of course includes research administration. So if you consider becoming a head of research center, rehabilitation center or clinical hospital, MBA can be quite helpful.

There is still important question concerning research projects management:

if scientist should manage research projects on their own, or allow to share it with experienced project managers? Right in the middle is research project managed by experienced scientist-manager with appropriate management background (e.g. postgraduate project management studies, or even MBA). This way question about management skills in scientists is very important: we require management skills, certificates and experience in many branches, eg. IT. Research seems be area of increased business risk (both chances and threats) thus qualifications of the team leaders need to be emphasized. Moreover many scientists are simultaneously lab supervisors, head of departments or even deans/provosts. i.e. work on managing posts. Theyu get in touch with businessmans or people from local or governmental administration, and should have peer knowledge and experience to provide required level of business competence. This may significantly increase need for formal preparation of sicentists (postgtraduate, incl. MBA). I am right or not?

Emilia,

Great question!

Because I train hundreds of MBA candidates I feel that an MBA degree, especially a general management major, is useful to anyone in the natural or hard sciences seeking to manage others.

The "art of getting thing done through others" is not necessarily intuitive. Some of the basic management theories are very useful to resolving or anticipating very basic business problems in health related and natural science related organizations. An MBA means a person, regardless of field, need not re-invent the wheel! A medical doctor, for example, should not have to make common mistakes to learn abut planning and control because the MBA should have covered these topics, through cases and simulations, in the MBA curriculum.

Having an MBA degree could be quite useful to any academic discipline. No matter they are from Nursing, Military Science, Biology, or Medical Sciences. I I have biology and medical science background. I have a company of my own. I am also an academic editor. In addition, I also manage projects. As Dariusz pointed out, having an MBA or PMP would be ideal for scientist. Additionally, in the current research scenario, the scientist need to know almost all the domains of management disciplines such as cost management (they have to prepare funding applications, hence preparation of budget), time management, quality management, human resources management (they have to know how to manage their staff, conflict resolution, etc), and project management (how to complete the project successfully). Stakeholder management and stakeholder engagement is something they have to do in clinical projects. So, if one carefully look into the whole of MBA curriculum, there will be always a 'translatable skills' that can be utilized in their own scientific career, no matter they become a 'scientific administrator' or not!

Please could you let me know from which university (reputed one with distance education option) it would be worth applying for MBA?

You could suggest me out of your experience by emailing at [email protected]

Yes, MBA for scientist is very useful today.

Any education helps. The questions is what you want to learn, why and how you plan to use your knowledge.

I read somewhere that the one who knows the business, don't need MBA degree and those with degree and no knowledge of business, can never succeed in it. If you are in science, you should only have presentations skills to present your research and product. 

The PI of any scientific project must be a good scientist as well as a planner and administrator; in that case MBA is an added advantage

I agree with Mitra that as Scientists and head of programs we are involved in dealing with lots of administrative and management issues and MBA certainly can help to gain further knowledge in management that as doctors or scientist we don't learn.

MBA program, especially Business Administration major, is useful to both academic scholars and professional staff.

Dear Emilia, MBA for scientist can be highly useful, what I feel that as a researcher if we are efficient managers particularly research managers then our day to day activities and short/long term projects can be accomplished withing a set time frame and wonderful results too -- since much time like in our country is spent on managing things / many matters rather then actually doing research. MBA would be highly useful and more rewarding for scientists in private sectors rather that Govt. services. 

Yes, of course it is important. It helps in creating better scientist and most importantly help him/ her to be a better employee.

MBA will certainly help the Managers of Technology generation and it's dissemination. I think the Director of the Institute and Hod who coordinate R&D activities need to have MBA. some may have specialist functions like Technology forecasting and Technology evaluation.

for an Institute it is extremely important to evaluate the technology so it costing can be done accordingly