Brunel celebrated 40 years as a university in 2006 and is nearing the end of £250- million programme to upgrade and centralise its teaching, research and sporting facilities.

For the first time since its early years, the whole university will be located on the main Uxbridge campus.

The building programme already includes a £6.5-million outdoor sports complex and a £7-million indoor athletics and netball centre, which will be a fitting home for the former Borough Road College and its illustrious sporting traditions.

There is also a hugely extended university library, increased residential accommodation, more catering and social amenities and enhanced teaching and research facilities.

Development

There is still plenty of scope for development. The university has quadrupled in size, with almost 13,000 students sharing a spacious, but hitherto uninspiring, main campus that had an isolated feel despite affording easy access to central London. In recent years, Brunel has introduced more variety into a portfolio of degrees that was once given over almost entirely to sandwich courses.

About half of all undergraduates still take four-year degrees that incorporate work placements, but new developments have tended to be conventional three-year arts, social science or sports programmes. There has also been significant growth in courses specialising in new technologies, such as multimedia design, interactive computing and broadcast media. Other innovations include creative writing, journalism, sonic arts, aviation engineering and pilot studies, motorsport engineering and space engineering.

Work placements and the inclusion of skills modules, such as oral and written communication, business and computer literacy, in degree courses have helped maintain a consistently good record in the graduate employment market. Many courses are validated by professional institutions.

Ratings

Teaching assessments were consistently good, with drama, education, sport science and politics producing the best scores. In 2006, all aspects of the learning opportunities in NHS-funded health programmes were reviewed and rated commendable, and Brunel also scored well in an institutional audit. The last research assessments showed further improvement, although only 61 per cent of the academics were entered and design lost its 5* rating.

Law, general and mechanical engineering, library and information studies and sociology all reached grade 5. Substantial investment in research centres and academic recruitment should produce further progress in 2008, when a much higher proportion of staff will be assessed.

Sport

Sporting excellence is also being maintained, with Olympic gold-medalwinning rower James Cracknell and heavyweight boxer Audley Harrison the best-known alumni of recent times. More than a third of the undergraduates are from working-class homes – significantly more than the national average for the subjects on offer – and almost 40 per cent come from ethnic minorities. The level of applications to the university has been rising, despite increased entry scores, which now average 320 points, but the decline in 2008 was greater than the national average.

The projected total of 13 per cent leaving without a qualification is better than the UK average for Brunel’s subjects and entry grades. Student union facilities are good and students like Brunel’s intimacy, although the university has not done well in the National Student Surveys, almost slipping out of the top 100 in 2007. The residential stock has been increased in recent years and new undergraduates will be guaranteed accommodation on campus in 2009.

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