When Magnus Blikeng finished a bachelors degree in marketing management at Manchester Metropolitan University he was eager to gain a masters qualification that would help him get a management job in the creative sector.

He considered several traditional courses but opted for an institution with just 127 students worldwide that is not even a university.

Hyper Island (the name is taken from a coding term) is an “alternative degree provider”, established in 1996 in a former military prison building on Stumholmen island, Sweden. It has since expanded to offer courses in New York, Singapore, London, Amsterdam, Stockholm, S?o Paulo and Manchester, with a focus on masters degrees for professionals in the creative sector who see the need to be digitally savvy.