University College, Nottingham

The University of Nottingham is a public research university in Nottingham, England. It was founded as University College Nottingham in 1881, and was granted a royal charter in 1948.

Nottingham's main campus ( University Park) with Jubilee Campus and teaching hospital (Queen's Medical Centre) are located within the City of Nottingham, with a number of smaller campuses and sites elsewhere in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire. Outside the UK, the university has campuses in Semenyih, Malaysia, and Ningbo, China. Nottingham is organised into five constituent faculties, within which there are more than 50 schools, departments, institutes and research centres. Nottingham has more than 46,000 students and 7,000 staff across the UK, China and Malaysia and had an income of £834.7 million in 2023–24, of which £141.6 million was from research grants and contracts, with an expenditure of £615.3 million.

The institution's alumni have been awarded one Nobel Prize, a Fields Medal, and a Gabor Medal and Prize. The university is a member of the Association of Commonwealth Universities, the Russell Group, Universitas 21, Universities UK, the Virgo Consortium, and participates in the Sutton Trust Summer School programme as a member of the Sutton 30.

In November 2023, it was announced that the University of Nottingham had become the first university in the UK to be awarded an Athena SWAN Gold Award for its commitment to advancing gender equality.

History

Founding

The University of Nottingham traces its origins to both the founding of an adult education school in 1798, and the University Extension Lectures inaugurated by the University of Cambridge in 1873—the first of their kind in the country. However, the foundation of the university is generally regarded as being the establishment of University College Nottingham, in 1881 as a college preparing students for examinations of the University of London.

In 1875, an anonymous donor provided £10,000 to establish the work of the Adult Education School and Cambridge Extension Lectures on a permanent basis, and the Corporation of Nottingham agreed to erect and maintain a building for this purpose and to provide funds to supply the instruction.

The foundation stone of the college was duly laid in 1877 by the former Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone, and the college's neo-gothic building on Shakespeare Street was formally opened in 1881 by Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany. In 1881, there were four professors – of Literature, Physics, Chemistry and Natural Science. New departments and chairs quickly followed: Engineering in 1884, Classics combined with Philosophy in 1893, French in 1897 and Education in 1905; in 1905 the combined Department of Physics and Mathematics became two separate entities; in 1911 Departments of English and Mining were created, in 1912, Economics, and Geology combined with Geography; History in 1914, Adult Education in 1923 and Pharmacy in 1925.

Development

The university college underwent significant expansion in the 1920s, when it moved from the centre of Nottingham to a large campus on the city's outskirts. The new campus, called University Park, was completed in 1928, and financed by an endowment fund, public contributions, and the generosity of Sir Jesse Boot (later Lord Trent) who presented to the City of Nottingham in 1921. Boot and his fellow benefactors sought to establish an "elite seat of learning" committed to widening participation, and hoped that the move would solve the problems facing University College Nottingham, in its restricted building on Shakespeare Street. Boot stipulated that, whilst part of the Highfields site, lying south-west of the city, should be devoted to the University College, the rest should provide a place of recreation for the residents of the city, and, by the end of the decade, the landscaping of the lake and public park adjoining University Boulevard was completed. The original University College building on Shakespeare Street in central Nottingham, known as the Arkwright Building, now forms part of Nottingham Trent University's City Campus.

University College Nottingham was initially accommodated within the Trent Building, an imposing white limestone structure with a distinctive clock tower, designed by Morley Horder, and formally opened by King George V on 10 July 1928. During this period of development, Nottingham attracted high-profile lecturers, including Albert Einstein, H. G. Wells, and Mahatma Gandhi. The blackboard used by Einstein during his time at Nottingham is still on display in the Physics department.

Apart from its physical transfer to surroundings that could not be more different from its original home, the college made few developments between the wars. The Department of Slavonic Languages (later Slavonic Studies) was established in 1933, the teaching of Russian having been introduced in 1916. In 1933–34, the Departments of Electrical Engineering, Zoology and Geography, which had been combined with other subjects, were made independent; and in 1938 a supplemental Charter provided for a much wider representation on the Governing Body. However, further advances were delayed by the outbreak of war in 1939.

University status

University College Nottingham students received their degrees from the University of London. However, in 1943, the university was granted its royal charter which endowed it with university status and gave it the power to confer degrees. In 1948 University College Nottingham was incorporated as the University of Nottingham.

In the 1940s, the Midlands Agricultural and Dairy College at Sutton Bonington merged with the university as the School of Agriculture, and in 1956 the Portland Building was completed to complement the Trent Building. In 1970, the university established the UK's first new medical school of the 20th century.

In 1999, Jubilee Campus was opened on the former site of the Raleigh Bicycle Company, one mile (1.6 km) away from the University Park Campus. Nottingham then began to expand overseas, opening campuses in Malaysia and in China in 1999 and 2004 respectively. In 2005, the King's Meadow Campus opened near University Park.

The university has used several logos throughout its history, beginning with its coat of arms. Later, Nottingham adopted a simpler logo, in which a stylised version of Nottingham Castle was surrounded by the text "The University of Nottingham". In 2001 Nottingham undertook a major re-branding exercise, which included replacing the logo with the current one.

Campuses

UK campuses

University Park Campus

University Park Campus, to the west of Nottingham city centre, is the main campus of the University of Nottingham. Set around its lake and clock-tower and with extensive parkland greenery, University Park has won numerous awards for its architecture and landscaping, and has been named the greenest campus in the country in a Green Flag Award.

At the south entrance to the main campus, in Highfields Park, lies the Lakeside Arts Centre, the university's public arts facility and performance space. The D.H. Lawrence Pavilion houses a range of cultural facilities, including a 225 capacity theatre space, a series of craft cabinets, the Weston Gallery (which displays the university's manuscript collection), the Wallner gallery, which exists as a platform for local and regional artists, and a series of visual arts, performance and hospitality spaces. Other nearby facilities include the Djanogly Art Gallery, Recital Hall and Theatre, which in the past have hosted recordings and broadcasts by BBC Radio 3, local community theatre partnerships, contemporary art exhibitions, and cultural festivals.

Jubilee Campus

Jubilee Campus, designed by Sir Michael Hopkins, was opened by Queen Elizabeth II in 1999, and is approximately from University Park. The campus' facilities house the Schools of Education and Computer Science, and The Nottingham University Business School. The site is also the home of The National College for School Leadership. Additional investment of £9.2 million in Jubilee Campus was completed in 2004, with a second building for Nottingham University Business School opened by Lord Sainsbury. The environmentally friendly nature of the campus and its buildings have been a factor in the awards that it has received, including the Millennium Marque Award for Environmental Excellence, the British Construction Industry Building Project of the Year, the RIBA Journal Sustainability Award, and the Civic Trust Award for Sustainability.

The Jubilee Campus won the commendation of the Energy Globe Award judges in 2005. The campus is distinct for its modern and unique architecture, culminating in Aspire, a 60-metre tall artistic structure is the tallest freestanding structure in the UK. The university plans to invest £200 million in a new scheme designed by Ken Shuttleworth, designer of the London 'Gherkin' and founder of Make Architects. However, the architecture of the Jubilee Campus is not admired by all, and the newly completed Amenities Building and YANG Fujia Building have been labelled the second worst new architectural design in Britain in a survey.

A fire in September 2014 destroyed the GlaxoSmithKline building which was under construction, but it was rebuilt and officially opened in 2017.

Other campuses

The City Hospital Campus houses staff and postgraduate students specialising in respiratory medicine, stroke medicine, oncology, physiotherapy, and public health. The campus was expanded in 2009 to house a new institute of public health and a specialist centre for tobacco research.

Sutton Bonington Campus houses Nottingham's School of Biosciences and the School of Veterinary Medicine and Science, and is about south of the City of Nottingham, between the M1 motorway, Ratcliffe-on-Soar Power Station, and the Midland Main Line railway. The campus is centred on the historic manor of Sutton Bonington and retains many of its own botanic gardens and lakes. The University Farm, including the Dairy Centre, is at the Sutton Bonington Campus.

King's Meadow Campus was established in 2005 on the former Central Independent Television Studios site on Lenton Lane. It mainly accommodates administrative functions, but also the Department of Manuscripts and Special Collections. A functioning television studio remains at the site, that continues to be rented to the film and television industry.

Castle Meadow Campus is a 3.75-hectare site below Nottingham Castle, purchased by the university in 2021, having been previously owned by HMRC (HM Revenue and Customs). Existing buildings are to be refurbished with the campus planned to open from 2023.

International campuses

Nottingham has introduced overseas campuses as part of a growth strategy. The first stage in this strategy was the establishment in 1999 of a campus in Semenyih, Selangor, Malaysia, a short distance from Kuala Lumpur. This was followed in 2004 by a campus in Ningbo, Zhejiang Province, China.

The Malaysia campus was the first campus of a British university in Malaysia and one of the first anywhere in the world, earning the Queen's Award for Enterprise 2001 and the Queen's Award for Industry (International Trade) 2006. In September 2005, the Malaysia campus moved to a purpose-built campus at Semenyih, south of Kuala Lumpur city centre.

The £40 million Ningbo campus was completed in 2005, and was officially opened by John Prescott, the UK's Deputy Prime Minister, in February 2006. Like the Malaysia Campus, Ningbo Campus builds on the University Park in the UK and includes a lake, its own version of Nottingham's famous Trent Building, and the Centre for Sustainable Energy Technologies (CSET), China's first zero-carbon building.

In November 2012, the university launched a new joint venture in collaboration with the East China University of Science and Technology: the Shanghai Nottingham Advanced Academy (SNAA). The SNAA will deliver joint courses in Shanghai including periods of study in Nottingham, with teaching and research at undergraduate, postgraduate, and doctoral levels.

Organisation and administration

Governance

The chief officer is the Chancellor, elected by the University Court on the recommendation of the University Council. The chief academic and administrative officer is the Vice-Chancellor, who is assisted by Pro-Vice-Chancellors. The governing body is the University Council, which has 35 members and is mostly non-academic. The academic authority is the Senate, consisting of senior academics and elected staff and student representatives. The largest forum is the University Court, presided over by the Chancellor.

The outgoing Registrar is Paul Greatrix, who finishes in post at the end of 2024.

Chancellors

The following have served as Chancellor of the university:

* 1949–1954: John Boot, 2nd Baron Trent
* 1954–1971: William Cavendish-Bentinck, 7th Duke of Portland
* 1971–1978: Sir Francis Hill
* 1978–1993: Sir Gordon Hobday
* 1993–2000: Ronald Dearing, Baron Dearing
* 2000–2013: Yang Fujia
* 2013–2017: Sir Andrew Witty
* 2020−present: Lola Young, Baroness Young of Hornsey

Vice-Chancellors

The following have served as Vice-Chancellor of the university:

* 1948–1965: Bertrand Hallward

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