The largest town in England finally got a university in 2005, after eight years of trying.

From 2008, it will have a single site in the town centre with additional and enhanced teaching space, facilities to interact with industry and a new students’ union.

University status had an instant impact: Bolton recorded the biggest increases in applications in the UK for two successive years.

Although there had been a big fall at the start of 2008, the demand for places was still well above preuniversity days. The university traces its roots back as far as 1824 to one of the country’s first three mechanics institutes.

Ambitious

There are already more than 8,000 students and there are no plans for dramatic growth, despite the new-found popularity. The university sees itself as a regional institution, with three quarters of the students coming from the North West, many through partner colleges.

But there is also an international dimension, with long-established links in Malaysia and a regular contingent of overseas students from 70 different countries.

Bolton has set itself the ambitious target of climbing into the top half of the university system within 15 years. Judged on our criteria, it has some way to go, but it is not unusual for brand-new universities to make their debut near the foot of the table.

Even in its days as an institute of higher education, it was competitive in categories such as spending per student on the library and other facilities, but it is dragged down by other indicators.

Satisfaction

Student satisfaction is not one of these: the university almost made the top ten in rankings of the first National Student Satisfaction Survey and, although ratings slipped a little in 2007, Bolton remains in the top half of that table.

Teaching assessments were variable, but education, nursing and psychology all achieved maximum points and the last seven assessments all produced more than 20 points out of 24.

The university is not research-driven, so not surprisingly, research grades were less impressive, but metallurgy and materials reached grade 4 in the last assessments. A centre for research and innovation in materials which opened in 2003 is to be the first of a series of “knowledge exchange zones”. Bolton is not one of the new breed of “teaching-only” universities; it has been accredited for research degrees for more than ten years and acquired its new status under the old rules.

About 1,700 of the students are postgraduates, taking qualifications up to and including PhDs. The £11.3-million building programme at the Deane campus has included a design studio and three floors of teaching and learning space where students work on live briefs for companies seeking design solutions; an Innovation Factory housing, among others, special effects laboratories, a product design studio and a student services centre with floor space the size of a football pitch.

A swimming pool and sports complex will be next, if plans for a joint development with the local authority are approved. The 700 reasonably priced residential places go a long way in an institution with a high proportion of home-based students. More than half of the students are over 20 at entry.

Access

The university exceeds all the access measures designed to widen participation in higher education: nearly all the students are state-educated, four in ten are from working-class homes and the proportion from areas without a tradition of higher education is almost twice the national average for Bolton’s subjects and entry qualifications.

The downside – and it’s an important one – is that almost a third of the students are projected to leave without a qualification: by far the highest proportion in England. The university has an action plan to bring the rate down to the national average for its courses and qualifications by 2012.

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