News - Cornwall Home to Top University
University of Exeter press release
The 2009 Guardian league table has put the University of Exeter, which has a campus in Cornwall, in 15th place in the UK - out of 117 listed higher education institutions. The University shares the Tremough Campus, near Penryn, with University College Falmouth, as part of the Combined Universities in Cornwall (CUC) initiative.
All four of the major league tables - Guardian, The Times, The Sunday Times and Independent - now rank Exeter among the top 20 UK universities. The University of Exeter is also the current Times Higher Education University of the Year.
The Guardian table, which was published in the Guardian newspaper on 1 May, had this to say about Exeter:
"One of the lesser-known recipes for happiness is to live in a place where other people choose to go on holiday. Students at Exeter are likely to have permanent smiles on their faces: it has campuses in the cathedral city and also near Falmouth, in Cornwall, as well as plenty of coastline, countryside and glorious weather. It's no wonder that increases in applications far exceed the national average. Of course, you'll have to do some work, too - Exeter has an excellent academic reputation."
The University of Exeter has 14,000 students, around 1,000 of whom are based on the Tremough Campus, and an annual turnover of over £170 million. The University was established by Royal Charter in 1955, although its roots can be traced back a century before that. The University launched the £100 million Tremough Campus with University College Falmouth in 2004, as part of a CUC initiative. Last year, applications to study with Exeter on the Tremough Campus rose by 164% and it aims to have 1,700 students in Cornwall by 2010. With a growing team of world-class academics, the University has brought some £5.4 in new research income to Cornwall since 2004. The University is aiming to be among the top ten universities in the UK by 2012.
Professor Matthew Evans, Provost of the University of Exeter's Cornwall Campus, said: "This great achievement reflects on our successes in Exeter and in Cornwall, on the Tremough Campus. We are proud to be working with other organisations in the county to provide first-class higher education in Cornwall. As we look forward to an even brighter future, with ambitions of achieving top 10 and establishing a major new research centre in Cornwall, today's result shows that we are heading in the right direction. I would like to congratulate all of our staff, students and supporters for their hard work and dedication."
The Tremough Campus is funded mainly by the European Union (Objective One), the South West Regional Development Agency, and the Higher Education Funding Council for England, with support from Cornwall County Council. Set in 70 acres of countryside, but close to the waterside towns of Penryn and Falmouth, the campus offers a lively student community. The University of Exeter now offers degrees in Biology, Modern Celtic and Cornish Studies, English, Geology, Geography, History, Law, Mining Engineering, Politics and Renewable Energy on the Tremough Campus, which has expanded rapidly as part of the Combined Universities in Cornwall initiative.
See: http://education.guardian.co.uk/universityguide2009/0,,2276673,00.html