UEL has spent more than £190 million on its Docklands campus, within sight of London City Airport, and is now unrecognisable from its early days as a pioneering polytechnic.

Student residences and recreational facilities sit side by side with academic buildings in a prize-winning waterside development for more than 7,000 students.

The final pieces in the jigsaw were the business school and Knowledge Dock, a support centre for local companies, which opened in 2006, and a £40-million student village on the Royal Albert Dock, which added another 800 beds in 2007.

The campus has helped to attract substantial growth in applications to UEL, although there had been a decline at the start of 2009, when most universities experienced healthy increases. Student numbers have shot up from 12,000 to 20,000 since 2001.

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Modern

The capital’s first new campus for 50 years gave the university a new focal point, with its modern version of traditional university features like cloisters and squares.

Students of fashion, fine art, graphic design, product design, media and cultural studies were first into new premises, followed by UEL’s highly rated School of Architecture and the Visual Arts and electrical and manufacturing engineering in 2005.

Business, computing and technology have now completed the academic set.

Redeveloped

The university’s original campus in Stratford is also being redeveloped, with a new library and learning centre, student residences and facilities for part-time and evening courses.

The Centre for Clinical Education in Podiatry, Physiotherapy and Sports Sciences, incorporating the new London Foot Hospital, opened there in 2006. The Great Hall in University House now incorporates a high-tech, 230-seat fully retractable lecture theatre, while the health and bioscience laboratories have been refurbished and refitted. New buildings for education and law are next on the development plan.

Research

All but one of the nine subject areas in which UEL entered the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise contained at least some ‘world-leading’ research. In communication, culture and media studies, the proportion was 20 per cent, with another 60 per cent of work rated internationally excellent. Sociology and art and design also produced good results.

Teacher training courses have been given good marks by the Office for Standards in Education. Finance and accounting achieved the best results in an otherwise poor set of scores in the National Student Survey published in 2008, which left UEL among the bottom ten universities.

Access

UEL’s focus is more concerned with extending access to higher education than competing with the elite universities. Barely more than half of the new first year intake now arrive with A levels and a majority are over 21 on entry – many choosing to start courses in February.

Many degrees are vocational and employers are closely involved in course planning. The university has pioneered a work-based learning initiative, offering accredited placements with local employers.

Almost half of UEL’s students come from working-class homes, many from the area’s large ethnic minority population. A successful mentoring scheme for black and Asian students has become a model for other institutions. A guidance unit advises local people who are considering returning to education.

The university is also strong on provision for disabled students and houses the new Rix Centre for Innovation and Learning Disability.

The projected dropout rate has been improving considerably – the latest figure of less than 20 per cent is better than the national average for UEL’s courses and entry qualifications.

Graduate employment rates have also been improving, with the university operating mentoring and placement programmes that involve almost 1,000 businesses, including many in the City or Canary Wharf.

Accomodation

University-owned accommodation is still not plentiful for the number of students, although there are now more than 1,100 flats and studios on the Docklands campus and the rents are good value for London.

Because many choose to live at home, all first years who request accommodation are housed. The social mix means that UEL has not been the place to look for the archetypal partying student lifestyle, although the Docklands campus is beginning to change this.

New students’ union premises have been added on both the Stratford and Docklands campuses, each of which also has some sports facilities.

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