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Some £20 million has gone into one of the first new schools of pharmacy for 20 years, as well as the schools of science and engineering, the Natural Resources Institute, nursing and some business courses.

A joint learning resources centre serves Chatham Maritime and the University of Kent’s neighbouring premises. Another shared facility has improved teaching facilities and expanded student services, the campus having already exceeded the original target of 6,000 students.

Sports and teaching centre

Other schools are situated at Avery Hill, a Victorian mansion on the outskirts of southeast London, where a £14-million sports and teaching centre opened in 2006, with a new gym and refurbished café following in 2008. As well as a sports hall and 220-seat lecture theatre, there are laboratories for health courses that replicate NHS wards.

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A neighbouring building is now the main base for the School of Health and Social Care. The campus also contains a student village of 1,300 rooms, as well as teaching accommodation for the social sciences, architecture, landscape and construction and the large education faculty, which is one of the few to offer both primary and secondary teacher training courses. The Avery Hill TV studio has also been refurbished to meet current industrial standards.

Results

Results in the National Student Survey have improved dramatically in the last two years, with accounting, history, pharmacy and philosophy demonstrating particularly high levels of satisfaction in 2008.

The university achieved mixed results from a large entry to the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise, which showed a quarter of the work reaching ‘world-leading’ or internationally excellent levels. The small mechanical engineering group produced by far the best results, but architecture and history also did well.

A fifth of the university’s income is from research and consultancy – the largest proportion at any former polytechnic.

Eleven associated colleges in Kent and London teach the university’s courses, while strong links with institutions in Europe and further afield provide a steady flow of overseas students, as well as exchange opportunities for those at Greenwich. The university is the UK's top recruiter of students from India, and also takes large numbers from Mauritius and Nigeria.

Access

A commitment to extending access to higher education has led to low entrance requirements in many subjects and a relatively high proportion of mature students.

More than 97 per cent of undergraduates are state-educated, almost half coming from working-class homes. Both figures are significantly higher than the national average for Greenwich’s courses and entrance qualifications. The downside is a projected dropout rate of more than 20 per cent, although even this figure is better than the university’s benchmark.

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