FEATURE30 April 2018

Making an advance

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B2B Features Impact UK

The Market Research Society’s Advanced Certificate qualification is more than 15 years old. Jane Bainbridge talks to some of the first wave who studied for it, to see how the qualification has helped them in their careers

Blackboard-grad

Just over 15 years ago, our new century was still in its infancy. The Queen was celebrating her Golden Jubilee, Arsenal beat Chelsea in the FA Cup final and Ford stopped manufacturing at its Dagenham car plant. Meanwhile, in the more specialised world of market research, the Market Research Society launched its Advanced Certificate qualification. 

It was the start of what’s turned out to be the MRS’s biggest qualification – a vocational equivalent of an undergraduate degree. Taking about a year to complete, it’s become the benchmark for competence in the research sector. Today, up to 400 people take it each year and, since its launch, 6, 500 candidates across 40 countries have studied for it. But what about those who were there at the start? What do they remember of it and how have their careers developed since they started to study in 2002?

Martin Wootton was at RS Consulting, and he is still ...