Coventry is investing £160 million in its 33-acre campus close to the city centre, much of it going on student facilities.

The showpiece library cost £20 million and is almost entirely naturally ventilated and lit.

The £5-million student centre, opened in 2006, contains everything from the accommodation and careers services to the Finance and Academic Registry, as well as lounge space.

The Centre for Academic Writing offers advice on essays and theses, with group sessions and one-to-one appointments, while the Maths Support Centre includes a statistics advisory service and specialist support service for students with dyslexia.

Initiatives

Among the next projects will be a student enterprise centre and a new engineering and computing building.

Another initiative launched this year will be a Health and Wellbeing Centre for students and staff, covering sport, counselling, mental health, disability, the GP practice and spirituality and health.

The university has already added other facilities, including more residential accommodation, a second students’ union and a sports centre, during a decade in which student numbers doubled to more than 20,000.

There is a £7-million arts centre and the students’ union has dedicated facilities for mature and international students. Coventry traces its origins back to 1843 with the foundation of the College of Design and its links with the motor industry of the Midlands were reflected in its earlier title of Lanchester Polytechnic, named after a leading engineering figure. It has adopted an innovative approach to computer-assisted learning, supported by an expanded computer network.

E-learning

The university was chosen to house national centres of excellence in teaching for e-learning in health and social care, as well as in maths, and transport and product design. Degrees in automotive engineering and design courses have been developed in collaboration with the motor industry, both in Coventry and further afield. The university has a focus on employment, which is reflected in a predominantly vocational curriculum.

The Start-Up Café encourages business networking and local employers are engaging with the programme of work-based learning. A rough balance is maintained between arts, technology, business and health studies in order to preserve an all-round educational environment.

The majority of students exercise their right to take “free-choice modules” that cover the full range of university provision, with IT skills and languages particularly popular. Coventry has been building up its portfolio of courses, introducing eye-catching degrees in subjects such as disaster management, forensic chemistry, criminology and boat design.

Ratings

Teaching ratings were good, with history and politics, economics, health subjects and mathematics achieving near-perfect scores, following early successes for geography and mechanical engineering. Economics was the biggest success in the latest National Student Survey.

Research grades improved considerably in the 2001 assessment exercise, but only design, materials and politics reached any of the top three categories. Design benefits from a revolutionary £1.6-million digital modelling workshop, sponsored by the Bugatti Trust, which provides full-scale vehicle modelling facilities for undergraduates as well as researchers. Among the initiatives to improve the student experience has been the introduction of tangible rewards for excellent teaching and further development of electronic learning.

Almost 40 per cent of the undergraduates have working-class backgrounds, many from areas of low participation in higher education. Applications have been healthy and were down by less than the national average at the start of 2008, following the switch from six to five choices per candidate.

However, the projected dropout rate of almost 23 per cent is worse than the national average for the university’s subjects and entry qualifications. More than most universities, Coventry is a creature of its city, and the civic-minded approach of the university has created many town–gown links.

The main buildings open out from the ruins of the bombed cathedral, as university and public facilities mingle in the city. Student residences are within easy walking distance of the campus and city centre. Students welcome the relatively low cost of living in Coventry, and, as at most new universities, the student body encompasses a wide range of ages.

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