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University of Brighton

NATIONAL
RANK

67.3%

FIRSTS
2:1s

84.2%

COMPLETION
RATE

Key Stats

n/a

TEACHING
QUALITY

94th

STUDENT
EXPERIENCE

55th

RESEARCH
QUALITY

62nd=

GRADUATE
PROSPECTS

Contact details

ADDRESS

Mithras House,
Lewes Road, Brighton, BN2 4AT View on map >

Telephone

01273 600 900

admissions@brighton.ac.uk

Website

www.brighton.ac.uk

Open days

October 4 and 11 (Eastbourne); October 25 (Moulsecoomb); October 29 and November 5, 12, 19 and 26 (Grand Parade); November 1 (Falmer); November 8 and March 7, 2015 (Hastings)

University Profile

Brighton has become the first post-1992 university to raise money from the bond markets to fund campus improvements. It has spent more than £100m on new buildings and equipment in the last decade – and spending on facilities continues apace.

In the latest project, £29m is being invested in updating teaching facilities on the Moulsecoomb campus, where another new building houses the pharmacy and biosciences departments. A third academic building and £40m of student accommodation is planned for the campus.

A similar amount has been committed to halls of residence and support facilities in nearby Varley Park. In addition, a new academic building has opened in Hastings and facilities for the Faculty of Arts are being expanded on the Grand Parade Campus, in Brighton, which also hosts the Design Council’s national archive.

The university is among the top 30 in the UK for the volume of applications it receives. The demand for places has risen in 2014 after two years of decline, with engineering, computing, applied psychology and criminology among the subjects showing increases.

More than nine out of ten

courses include a placement or the option of a sandwich year. The four-year fashion textiles degree, for example, offers work placements in the USA, France and Italy, as well as Britain. Degrees are designed in collaboration with employers, and the majority are accredited or recognized by professional associations. There are well-established mentoring, entrepreneurship and volunteering schemes for students to develop themselves outside the classroom.

Brighton came of age when it was one of the first new universities to be awarded a medical school (opened in 2003), and it remains the only modern university to win our University of the Year award (way back in 1999). But it is equally well known for imaginative – and more contemporary – initiatives in its region, such as Its outlying campus in Hastings, which focuses on digital and broadcast media and runs a number of schemes to draw people from the region into higher education.

Student City

Paul Cooke, students’ union officer

The £28.5m medical school, run jointly with the University of Sussex, trains 128 doctors a year. Brighton was already heavily engaged in other health subjects, such as nursing and midwifery. The medical school’s headquarters, on Brighton’s Falmer campus, has also provided a new base for applied social sciences, such as criminology and applied psychology. The two universities have been collaborating since Brighton was a polytechnic, and there is a joint research building for science policy and management studies.

There are 21,000 students on five campuses. The School of Education, as well as languages and literature students, moved into a new building on the Falmer campus, which now also boasts a £7.3m sports centre. The university has a wealth of teaching facilities designed to build real-life skills, including a radio station and TV studio, a podiatry hospital, a physiotherapy clinic, flight simulator, rapid prototyping facilities, industrial textile rooms and a clinical skills and simulation suite for nursing students.

At Eastbourne, there is a new library and extensive leisure and sports facilities. Sport science laboratories and 354 en-suite residential places have been added, and improvements made to the learning resources centre, lecture theatres and refectory.

Brighton was again one of the top new universities in the last Research Assessment Exercise. Art and design produced the best results, with two-thirds of the work submitted considered world-leading or internationally excellent. Business management, sports studies and mechanical and aeronautical engineering also did well.

Brighton’s strengths in art and design – recognised in the award of national teaching centres in design and creativity – have been at the forefront of the university’s popularity. But the university also has a growing reputation in areas such as sport and hospitality, as well as scoring well in teacher education rankings.

The university has a cosmopolitan air, with more overseas students and a more middle-class UK intake than most post-1992 universities. Among the efforts to widen participation are progression partnerships with six primary and over 50 secondary schools and colleges in the South East of England, where students are guaranteed offers for Brighton courses, as well as financial support from the university. Over 2,000 students applied from Compact partnership schools in 2014, the first full year of operation.

The university also holds a Charter Mark for its commitment to care leavers and has a higher-than-average number of disabled students. Over a quarter of the full-time undergraduates are 21 or over on entry. Students have a personal tutor and there is an award-winning student services department.

The one in eight students projected not to complete their degrees is considered par for the course given Brighton’s course profile and student intake. Most like Brighton’s lively social scene, despite the high cost of living for those not in hall. Eastbourne is also popular, and both towns offer plentiful – if not, cheap – private rented accommodation.

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Detailed Statistics

PERFORMANCE