Information on Loughborough

Sunday Times names Loughborough University of the Year

Posted on 29/12/2008

Loughborough University Website

Sunday Times names Loughborough ‘University of the Year’ Loughborough University has won the coveted University of the Year title in this year’s Sunday Times University Guide.

The accolade is designed to recognise all-round excellence. It has been awarded to Loughborough in honour of the quality of the University’s teaching and research, its consistent high rankings in the National Student Survey, the University’s unbeaten six Queen’s Anniversary Prizes and its outstanding success in sport.

The Sunday Times University Guide, which will be published this weekend (21 September), provides profiles of all the UK’s higher education institutions, and a league table compiled using nine criteria student satisfaction, teaching and research quality, ratings from head teachers and academic peer review, entrance qualifications held by new students, degree results achieved, student/staff ratios, graduate employment levels and university dropout rates.

In this year’s overall league table, Loughborough was ranked in 11th position its highest ever rating.

“We are absolutely delighted to have received this very prestigious honour,” said Professor Shirley Pearce, Vice Chancellor of Loughborough University. “It is particularly pleasing that the title was awarded to us in recognition of the breadth of our achievements.”

The award of the University of the Year title caps a highly successful period for Loughborough.

At the end of 2007, it was presented with two Times Higher Awards, for the Best Student Experience, and Outstanding Support for Overseas Students the second successive year that the University was awarded the Best Student Experience title; and in February Her Majesty The Queen presented Loughborough with its sixth Queen’s Anniversary Prize for Higher and Further Education, in recognition of its vehicle, road and driver safety research an achievement unbeaten by any other institution.

In the national newspaper league tables, Loughborough has consistently been rated among the top fifteen UK universities, and in the 2008 National Student Survey it was ranked fourth in the UK, with 91% of its students rating their overall satisfaction with their university course as ‘four’ or ‘five’ on a five-point scale.

In recognition of the University’s burgeoning position as one of the country’s leading higher education institutions for environmental awareness and activity, Loughborough was ranked fifth, and awarded a First Class degree for its solid environmental performance, in the People and Planet Green League 2008. It was also announced by the Government as the headquarters for a new £1 billion national energy institute.

Other developments on campus have included the £15 million state-of-the-art Sports Technology Institute, which will enhance research, innovation and enterprise in the sport and leisure sector, and the development of a new £68 million campus accommodation scheme. Work also began on a business plan for a Science and Enterprise Park at the University the Park will allow Loughborough to further develop its science and enterprise links with industry, by attracting research and development activities that require access to university expertise, and by providing facilities for its own researchers.

Most recently the University saw its largest ever contingent of athletes compete at an Olympics and Paralympic Games, with 56 students, University-based athletes and graduates in action in Beijing over the summer. Loughborough’s athletes competed in 25 finals, broke two European and 15 British records and picked up a total of three medals.