University of Surrey

Battersea Polytechnic Institute

The University of Surrey was preceded by the Battersea Polytechnic Institute which was founded in 1891 and admitted its first students in 1894. Its aims were to provide greater access to further and higher education for some of the "poorer inhabitants" of London.

In 1901, Evening Classes consisted of some of the following; Mechanical Engineering and Building, Electrical Engineering, Chemical and other Trades, Physics and Natural Science, Maths, Languages, and Commercial subjects, Music. Special classes for Women in Domestic Economy subjects. Day Classes in Art, Science, Women's subjects and Gymnastics. Classes in preparation for University and Professional Examinations. Also. Science day School for Boys and Girls, Commercial School for Girls, Training School for Domestic Economy and Training for Teachers.

The Institute focused on science and technology subjects, and from about 1920 taught some classes for University of London students. The Institute awarded University of London external degrees.

Battersea College of Technology

In 1956, the Institute was among the first to receive the designation "College of Advanced Technology" and was renamed Battersea College of Technology. By the beginning of the sixties, the College had virtually outgrown its building in Battersea and had decided to move to Guildford. In addition to this, the Robbins Report of 1963 proposed that the Colleges of Advanced Technology, including Battersea, should expand and become degree-awarding universities.

In 1965, the university-designate acquired a greenfield site in Guildford from Guildford Cathedral, Guildford Borough Council and the Onslow Village Trust.

University

On 9 September 1966 the University of Surrey was established by Royal Charter and by 1970 the move from Battersea to Guildford was complete.

Early visitors to the new campus were Led Zeppelin, who performed their very first gig at the university on 25 October 1968.

Between 1982 and 2008, the university became the trustee of the building of the Guildford Institute, using parts of the building for its adult education programme ad providing a university presence in the heart of Guildford. The Assessment and Qualifications Alliance (formerly Associated Examining Board) moved from Aldershot to its own headquarters building on the Stag Hill campus in 1985.

The university marked its Silver Jubilee in 1991, an event celebrated by the publishing of Surrey – The Rise of a Modern University by Roy Douglas and by a Service of Thanksgiving in Guildford Cathedral attended by HM The Queen in March 1992.

The university celebrated its 35th anniversary year in May 2002 with a major event in Guildford Cathedral. It was also marked by the unveiling of the Surrey Scholar sculpture (by Allan Sly FBS) to mark the Golden Jubilee of Her Majesty The Queen and as a gift to the people of Guildford. The Surrey Scholar is located at the bottom of Guildford High Street. Understanding the Real World, a visual history of the university, by Christopher Pick, was published to coincide with this anniversary.

In 2007, the university saw a major increase in overall applications by 39% compared with the previous year. This was followed by a further increase in applications of 12% in 2008.

In October 2008, the university lost out to Royal Holloway in a bid to merge with London medical institute St George's, University of London.

From September 2009, the Guildford School of Acting became a subsidiary of the university and relocated from Guildford town centre to the university campus.

Governance

Responsibility for running the university is held formally by the Chancellor, currently HRH The Duke of Kent who was formally installed in 1977, and led at the executive level by the President and Vice-Chancellor, currently Professor Max Lu. The key bodies in the university governance structure are the Council, Senate and Executive Board.

The Council is the governing body of the university. It is responsible for the overall planning and management of the university and to ensure processes are in place to monitor financial and operational controls, and the University's performance against its strategy. The council is composed of no fewer than eleven external members, up to seven ex-officio members and up to three members elected by Senate.

The Senate is the statutory body responsible for governing the University's academic matters, including teaching and research, and the regulation and direction of the education and conduct of students. The composition of the Senate is drawn from the academic staff of the University, together with a number of ex-officio, elected and co-opted members. The Chair of the Senate is the President and Vice-Chancellor of the University.

The Executive Board is the senior advisory body which assists the President and Vice-Chancellor in discharging his executive authority to manage the operations and affairs of the University. It is responsible for advising on all matters relating to the University's strategy and for making recommendations to Council for approval.

The above Bodies are supported by a series of Committees which oversee the activities of distinctive administrative and academic areas of the University.

On 3 December 2015 it was announced that Professor G.Q. Max Lu would become the University's fifth President and Vice-Chancellor, taking up his appointment in April 2016. He succeeded Professor Sir Christopher Snowden who moved to take up the Vice-Chancellorship at the University of Southampton in September 2015. Sir Christopher joined Surrey on 1 July 2005. His predecessors are Professor Patrick J. Dowling (1994-2005), Professor Anthony Kelly (1975-1994) and Peter Leggett, the last Principal of Battersea College of Technology and the University's first Vice-Chancellor.

Professor Lu was honoured with a medal of the Order of Australia (Officer in the General Division) as part of the Australia Day Honours list 2017.

Campus

The university moved in 1968 to a new 30 ha (74-acre) site on Stag Hill in Guildford, adjacent to Guildford Cathedral. A further 90 ha (222 acres) allocated to the university remained undeveloped until 2005. The new Manor Park campus, designed as a car-free village, is 1.6 kilometres (1 mi) from the Stag Hill campus and on the other side of the A3 trunk road. It combines residences for students and staff, buildings for research and teaching, and sporting facilities.

The BBC's local radio station for Surrey and North-East Hampshire, BBC Surrey, has its studios on the campus. In addition the university has a student-run medium wave radio station, Stag Radio.

In November 2007, the university was given planning permission to build the Surrey Multifaith Centre. This will be the first building in Britain to have a Synagogue, Muslim Prayer Hall, Gurdwara and Chapel built separately under one roof.

On 8 July 2009, a temporary Amigo convenience store opened in the BB Building on the campus, replacing the previous One Stop store which was situated near the library. The new store is operated by the Compass Group, and will see the University enjoy 'guaranteed rental income and share of turnover'. The project is part of wider work which saw a new building, housing a larger shop and library extension, which opened on the One Stop site in April 2011.

In September 2009, the Guildford School of Acting moved into a new purpose built facility on the main Stag Hill campus as part of a strategic merger between the two organisations. The old Sports Centre has been converted into the Ivy Arts Centre, a performing arts facility housing a 200-seat theatre and studio and workshop space.

A £35 million research centre for the development of the first worldwide 5G network was scheduled to open in February 2015.

Surrey Sports Park

In April 2010, a £35 million new sports centre named the Surrey Sports Park opened.

The Surrey Sports Park is situated close to the main university campus on its Manor Park site. It houses a 50-metre Olympic-size swimming pool, three multi-sports halls, a squash centre, 700 square metres of fitness facilities, two artificial floodlit pitches, outdoor and indoor tennis courts, four real tennis courts and a climbing centre.

The 1,000 seat indoor arena is home to Guildford Heat basketball team, who have been using the venue since 2010 following a move from their previous home at the Guildford Spectrum. Heat are one of the leading teams and former winners of the British Basketball League, the country's top division.

It played host to all but 4 matches of the 2010 Women's Rugby World Cup (the semi finals, 3rd place play off and final were held at the Twickenham Stoop). It is also the official training facility for Harlequins rugby club, with plans to add a private gym for the club in addition to the already available facilities.

It will also be the home ground of UniS Old Boys F.C., a football team for alumni of the university, which competes in the Surrey County Intermediate League (Western), at the 12th level of the English football league system.

Surrey University participates in an annual sports festival called the Varsity Games. The university competes against other institutions such as Royal Holloway, University of London and Kingston University. Over the years, there has been stiff competition between Surrey and Kingston for the Varsity Cup, that has made both universities arch-rivals at the Games.

Organisation

The academic activities of the university are divided into the following three faculties:

Research

The university conducts extensive research on small satellites, with its Surrey Space Centre and spin-off commercial company, Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. In the 2001 Research Assessment Exercise, the University of Surrey received a 5* rating in the categories of "Sociology", "Other Studies and Professions Allied to Medicine", and "Electrical and Electronic Engineering" and a 5 rating in the categories of "Psychology", "Physics", "Applied Mathematics", "Statistics and Operational Research", "European Studies", and "Russian, Slavonic and East European Languages".

The new 5G Innovation Centre (5GIC) at the University of Surrey has gained over £40m support from international telecommunications companies including Aeroflex, AIRCOM International, BBC, BT Group, EE (telecommunications company), Fujitsu Laboratories of Europe, Huawei, Ofcom, Rohde & Schwarz, Samsung, Telefonica and Vodafone – and a further £11.6m from the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE).

In addition, the Surrey Research Park is a 28 ha (69-acre) low density development which is owned and developed by the university, providing large landscaped areas with water features and facilities for over 110 companies engaged in a broad spectrum of research, development and design activities. The university generates the third highest endowment income out of all UK universities "reflecting its commercially-orientated heritage."

Centre for Communication Systems Research

CCSR at the University of Surrey is the UK's largest and most well-known academic research centre in Mobile and Satellite Communication Systems and historically it has a unique research approach on both satellite as well as terrestrial mobile communication systems. The research activities within the group encompass all levels of communication systems, from antennas & propagation, air interfaces, PHY, MAC, networking layer up to the service support platforms and distributed applications and user interfaces. It is a major participant in European Union Information Science and Technology (IST) projects. It has major collaborations in India, China, Korea, Japan and USA as well as several links in the communications industry and UK Catapults. It holds a 100% graduate employment record. CCSR was selected by industry as a core member of the UK Virtual Centre of Excellence in Mobile and Personal Communications.

Surrey’s research into the Web of Things has been highlighted as one of the top 10 technology trends for 2014 by the IEEE Computing Society.

Awards

In 1991 the university was granted the Queen's Award for Export Achievement, and in 1996 it was awarded the Queen's Anniversary Prize for Higher & Further Education in recognition of the university's outstanding achievement in satellite engineering and communications, teaching and research by the Centre for Satellite Engineering Research and its associated companies. In 1998 Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL) was awarded the Queen's Award for Technological Achievement. This was presented in person by the Queen on her second visit to the university, accompanied by HRH The Duke of Edinburgh and HRH The Duke of Kent, Chancellor of the University.

More recently the university was awarded the 2002 Queen's Anniversary Prize for Higher & Further Education, this time for its internationally renowned research and development on optoelectronic devices and ion beam applications. The university has a high number of staff who are academicians of the learned societies: 10 Fellows of the Royal Society, 21 Fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering, one Fellow of the British Academy and 6 Fellows of the Academy of Social Sciences.

In July 2007, the university was awarded Fairtrade University status by the Fairtrade Foundation.

In 2011, the university won the 2011 Queen's Anniversary Prize for Higher & Further Education, for its research into the fields of safe water and sanitation.

In 2013, the Electronic Engineering Department of the university won the 2013 Elektra Award University Department of the Year, marking it the most innovative and successful in Europe.

Admissions

In terms of average UCAS points of entrants, Surrey ranked 18th in Britain in 2014. According to the 2017 Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide, approximately 8% of Surrey's undergraduates come from independent schools.

Rankings

The University of Surrey is recognised as one of the leading universities in the United Kingdom and has climbed rapidly in national league tables as of recent years. In the The Sunday Times 10-year (1998–2007) average ranking of British universities based on consistent league table performance, Surrey was ranked 35th overall in the UK. As of 2016 it now places between 4th and 14th in the three main ranking compilations of universities in the United Kingdom. For the most recent domestic university league tables, the university is ranked 4th overall by The Guardian, 11th overall by the Complete University Guide, 14th overall by the Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide 2017.

Subjects ranked in the top 10 include Hospitality & Tourism, Business & Management, Electronic Engineering, Food Science, Sociology, Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Animal Science, English Literature, Creative Writing, Modern Languages and Psychology.

Educational links

Since its foundation, the university has fostered links with other educational bodies in the local community and region. For example, in recent years it has validated courses at and subsequently accredited Saint Mary's College (now an independent institution called St Mary's University College, Twickenham), Wimbledon School of Art, and Farnborough College of Technology. The university currently validates courses at North East Surrey College of Technology (NESCOT), Guildford School of Acting, Guildford College of Further & Higher Education, King Edward VII Hospital Department of Staff Development, The Nuclear Department at HMS Sultan, St John's Seminary, Southern Theological Education & Training Scheme (STETS), the Pre-Retirement Association and SHL (UK) Ltd.

In 1998, as a result of the continuing development in the relationship between the university and the nearby Roehampton Institute, it was decided to form an academic federation. In November 1999, the Privy Council approved the necessary changes to the university's Charter and Statutes and the Roehampton Institute became The University of Surrey Roehampton at the beginning of 2000. Between 2000 and 2004, the university and Roehampton worked together as the Federal University of Surrey. In June 2004, the Privy Council granted Roehampton an independent university title, and it became Roehampton University from 1 August 2004. This move ended the federal partnership between the two institutions, although collaboration between the two is being maintained.

In 2007, the university and Dongbei University of Finance and Economics in Dalian, China, launched the Surrey International Institute, DUFE. The SII at DUFE offers Surrey degrees and dual-degree programmes in China. A placement year link with University of North Carolina is currently being initiated in 2009, where each institution places students from the other with companies located nearby, in the South East of England and the Carolinas, respectively.

International partners

The university holds a number of formal links with institutions from around the world to share teaching and research and facilitate staff and student exchanges.

Alf Robens

On the day before the installation ceremony of the first Chancellor of the University of Surrey, the Aberfan disaster occurred. Alfred Robens, Baron Robens of Woldingham who was appointed the first Chancellor, was also the chairman of the National Coal Board, and as such was expected to visit the site of the disaster. Robens decided instead to continue with the ceremony in Guildford to become Chancellor..

Notable academics

Academics to work at the university include Alf Adams, pioneer of the strained quantum-well laser; Jim Al-Khalili, the nuclear physicist, author and broadcaster; Aleks Krotoski, the technology journalist and broadcaster; Sir Martin Sweeting, founder of Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd; and Nigel Gilbert, the sociologist pioneer in the use of agent-based models in the social sciences.

On 20 May 2009, Andreas Mogensen, a researcher at the Surrey Space Centre, was announced as a new member of the European Astronaut Corps, part of the European Space Agency and in doing so, will become the first Danish astronaut.

In February 2011, terrorism and Northern Ireland expert Marie Breen Smyth, joined the Politics department, as Chair in International Relations. In March 2005, Breen-Smyth, (then Smyth) gave evidence to the House of Commons Northern Ireland Affairs Committee Inquiry into Dealing with Northern Ireland's past. Another notable academic was the late translation studies scholar Peter Newmark.

One notable academic, who is known for his work in Nanotechnology, is Ravi Silva. Ravi Silva is the current Director of the Advanced Technology Institute at the university. In 2003, he was awarded the Albert Einstein Silver Medal and the Javed Husain Prize by UNESCO for contributions to electronic devices. The 2011 Clifford Paterson Lecture was given by Silva for his outstanding contributions to basic science and engineering in the field of carbon nanoscience and nanotechnology. The lecture is given annually on any aspect of engineering. The General Electric Company Limited endowed the lecture in 1975 in honour of Clifford Paterson who undertook the creation of the GEC Research Laboratories in 1919. Other notable academics who have delivered the lecture include Frank Kelly and Richard Friend, both from the University of Cambridge.

Surrey's Centre for Environmental Strategy (established by Roland Clift in 1992) gained a lot of attention with the publication of Prosperity Without Growth by University of Surrey academic Tim Jackson, Professor of Sustainable Development and Director of the ESRC Research Group on Lifestyles, Values and Environment.

Students' Union

The University of Surrey Students' Union is the sole representative body of Surrey students to the university. It consists of a membership department (representing students on academic and welfare issues, as well as administering sports clubs and societies) as well as a commercial department. The organisation is non-profit, meaning any takings from the Union's four commercial outlets are invested in supporting the membership side of the business.

The Union was incorporated as an independent charity in July 2011. It has a trustee board consisting of four external trustees, a member of University staff, a student trustee, and five full-time student sabbatical officers (President, VP Activity, VP Community, VP Support, VP Voice).

The Union hosts many Balls throughout the academic year. The Union ball is a formal event, where students are smartly dressed. There is a Winter Ball at the end of the Autumn term. The Ball season begins in the Summer term with the Colours Ball. Colours Ball is an event organised for all sports activities done at the university. It is done at the end of the sports season, where members of various sports' clubs are honoured for their contribution to Sports at Surrey. There is a break in the middle of the season for students to sit their final examinations. After the examinations, the season continues with events from several Union societies. The season ends with the Graduation Ball at the end of the year for the graduating class.