International Master's in Management

Nova SBE’s International Master’s in Management climbed to #4 globally in the Financial Times Masters in Management 2025 ranking — a meteoric two-year rise that put it ahead of every other Iberian programme and most of the Continental top tier.⁵ The 18-month, English-taught IMM is delivered from the oceanfront Carcavelos campus that opened in 2018, twenty kilometres west of central Lisbon. Nova is a CEMS member, the cohort is small and international (around 69 students from 35 nationalities), and at €11,650 the base tuition is by some distance the lowest of any top-10 European MiM.¹ ³ ⁶ For applicants weighing rankings, value, and lifestyle in a single decision, Nova has become an unusually compelling option.

Overview

The IMM is Nova SBE’s English-taught, internationally oriented Master in Management. It should be distinguished carefully from Nova’s separate Portuguese-language Mestrado em Gestão, which is aimed at the domestic market and runs on a different calendar. The IMM is the programme that appears in the FT MiM ranking and is the degree most international readers of this directory will be considering.¹

Programme length is 18 months — three academic semesters spanning roughly September of year one to February of year two, with optional extensions for double-degree, CEMS, and international exchange tracks. The base curriculum sits within Nova’s standard fee structure; add-on semesters carry an incremental charge.¹ ³

Nova SBE is a founding-generation CEMS academic member, joining the alliance in 1998. IMM students can apply for the CEMS Master in International Management as a parallel track, which adds an exchange semester at one of 30+ partner schools and a corporate business project.⁶ Double-degree partnerships with Maastricht University (Netherlands) and Insper (Brazil) sit alongside the CEMS option for students who want a structured second-country experience.

Curriculum & Tracks

The first semester of the IMM is foundational — a compressed management core covering financial accounting, microeconomics, statistics for management, corporate finance, marketing management, strategy, operations, and a leadership and behaviour sequence. Teaching is case-led with substantial group work, and the cohort is small enough that faculty know students by name.²

Semesters two and three are where the programme customises. Students choose an area of concentration from six families: Strategy, Finance, Marketing, Sustainability, Digital Business, and Entrepreneurship.² Concentrations are not exclusive — students may take electives across families — and the elective catalogue spans the wider Nova SBE master’s offering. A field consulting project or company-based capstone closes the academic component, typically in semester three.

Students opting for the CEMS track substitute parts of semesters two and three with the CEMS curriculum, which embeds skill seminars, an exchange semester at a CEMS partner, and a Business Project conducted in teams for a corporate client. Double-degree students at Maastricht and Insper spend a full semester at the partner institution and receive both qualifications on graduation.²

Class Profile

Nova’s IMM is deliberately small — recent classes have been around 69 students drawn from 35 nationalities. Roughly 93% of the cohort is international, and female representation sits at 50%.¹ Both figures are unusually high among top-tier European MiMs and produce a classroom dynamic that several recruiters have publicly called the most balanced in southern Europe.

The average age at entry is 23, and students typically arrive with zero to two years of pre-programme work experience — most commonly internships during the undergraduate years. Academic backgrounds skew toward economics, management, and engineering, with sizeable minorities from law, the social sciences, and the humanities.

GMAT or GRE submission is recommended but not strictly required. Admitted scores cluster between 620 and 710, with an average around 650.⁴ Candidates without a test score are reviewed on the strength of their academic record, references, essays, and interview — Nova is comfortable making admissions calls without a standardised test result, which differentiates it from several of its higher-fee peers.

Application & Deadlines

For the September 2027 intake, Nova SBE runs two main deadlines: Round 1 (used by international applicants, double-degree candidates, and CEMS aspirants) closes on 23 March 2027, and Round 2 (general) closes on 30 April 2027.⁴ The school operates a rolling decision process within each round, typically issuing outcomes within four to six weeks of submission.

The application requires undergraduate transcripts, a CV, a motivation letter, two recommendation letters, and either a GMAT, GRE, or equivalent score where the candidate chooses to submit one. Shortlisted candidates are invited to an interview, conducted online. The application fee is modest by European standards.⁴

Earlier rounds carry two practical advantages. CEMS and double-degree allocations are decided in Round 1, so candidates targeting those tracks must apply by 23 March; scholarship decisions are also weighted toward earlier applicants. For readers comparing Iberian options, our piece on building a competitive MiM profile walks through the components that matter most.

Tuition, Scholarships & Funding

Tuition for the base three-semester IMM is €11,650 — the lowest published figure of any top-10 programme in the FT 2025 ranking.³ Add-on semesters for CEMS, double-degree, or extended international exchange tracks carry incremental fees, typically several thousand euros depending on the configuration. The full cost is detailed transparently on Nova’s IMM fees page.

Living costs in the Lisbon area are moderate by European-capital standards. A realistic budget covering rent, food, transport, and basic social spend runs €10,000–€14,000 per year, depending on whether students live in central Lisbon, in Carcavelos near the campus, or further inland. Carcavelos itself is a coastal town with rental availability across price points.

Nova SBE offers merit-based scholarships (awarded automatically with the application) and a portfolio of need-based aid administered by the school’s funding office. CEMS-specific scholarships, country-targeted awards (notably for African and Latin American candidates), and corporate sponsorships round out the funding picture. The total cost of attendance — tuition plus living — places the IMM among the strongest value propositions on the European MiM map.³

Career Outcomes

The FT 2025 ranking reports the IMM’s weighted three-year salary at US $123,000 — a figure that, in combination with strong employment and international mobility scores, drove the programme’s rise to #4 globally.⁵ The employment rate at three months post-graduation was 94% in the most recent class.

Sector placement is led by consulting (around a third of the cohort), with finance, technology, consumer goods, and marketing rounding out the top five. Top employers by hiring volume include PwC, Deloitte, BCG, Microsoft, Accenture, Amazon, EY, KPMG, McKinsey, L’Oréal, Google, and Unilever — a mix that reads as recognisably European-generalist with a tech and consulting tilt.

Geographic mobility is one of the IMM’s defining outcomes. Approximately 50% of graduates take their first role outside Portugal, and around 84% report pursuing careers with international scope.¹ First-job destinations are spread across Lisbon, Madrid, London, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, and Brussels, with smaller flows to São Paulo and Singapore where Nova’s alumni network is concentrated.

Campus & Life

The Carcavelos campus, opened in 2018, is the IMM’s most distinctive feature. Built directly above the Atlantic between Lisbon and Cascais, the campus is purpose-built for the school — modernist, low-rise, and oriented around an open central courtyard with sea views. Surfing and beach access are a five-minute walk from the lecture rooms, and the commuter train into central Lisbon (the Linha de Cascais) runs every 20 minutes from a station adjacent to campus.

Student life splits between Carcavelos and central Lisbon. Many IMM students live in or near Carcavelos for proximity to campus; others commute from Lisbon neighbourhoods such as Cais do Sodré, Príncipe Real, or Alvalade for the social and cultural depth of the city. Cost of living in either location is materially below Paris or London, which expands disposable income for the same nominal stipend.

The cohort scale (~69 students) means classmates know each other well across the full duration of the programme — there are roughly 30 active student clubs spanning consulting, finance, sustainability, sport, entrepreneurship, and the Tuna (a traditional Iberian student music group). For broader context on whether the MiM as a credential makes sense for your trajectory, see our framing piece on whether the MiM is worth it.

Notable Alumni

Nova SBE’s broader alumni network spans the senior leadership of Portuguese and Iberian business — notable names include António Simões (CEO of Santander Spain & Portugal, formerly CEO of Legal & General), Vítor Gaspar (Director of the IMF’s Fiscal Affairs Department and former Portuguese Minister of Finance), and Pedro Oliveira (founder of Patient Innovation). The IMM is a younger programme within Nova’s wider portfolio, and its alumni community is now several thousand strong, concentrated in consulting, finance, and technology across European and Latin American capitals.