The Department of Accounting at LSE has a proud and distinguished history. It was the first accounting department in the UK and was responsible for training the first generation of academics in the field. The excellence of teaching and research in the Department of Accounting at LSE is to this day globally acknowledged.
Accounting provides a fundamental operating infrastructure for organisations, markets, and society. Without accounting, capital markets would fail, organisations would be blind, and society would be poorer.
The Department’s work is united by a common dedication to the understanding of this critical role played by accounting, and to the communication of this understanding to our students and the wider public, including practitioners and regulators.
Our teaching and research are problem-driven and united by an interest in the big questions; it is grounded in the social sciences; and underpinned by state-of-the-art quantitative and qualitative methods. We commit to challenging our students to think critically, equipping them with the soft and hard skills for the competitive job market.
Students on the Department’s programmes grasp the potential of accounting in a wide range of settings. They learn to analyse how accounting is implicated in a variety of institutional and organisational processes of reporting, decision-making, and policy-setting. Our students understand the importance of disclosure, transparency, sustainability, regulation, and governance. They appreciate the interconnections between accounting and accountability, performance measurement and evaluation, risk and performance, value and values. And, they can critically evaluate how the rise of digitization and the expanding relevance of new foci of quantification, such as social impact and sustainability, are changing the landscape of traditional accounting.
Each year we admit over 400 students on our undergraduate and several graduate programmes. You are now among them. We welcome you to explore, learn, and grow, but also to enhance the experience together with your cohort, the faculty, and the professional services staff.
Professor Ane Tamayo
Head of the Department of Accounting, LSE