Always among the giants of British higher education, with 22 Nobel prizewinners to its credit, Manchester became larger and more powerful in 2004 through a merger with neighbouring UMIST.

The largest conventional university in Britain has kept its familiar name, but is now headed by a Vice-Chancellor from the other side of the world.

Professor Alan Gilbert arrived from the University of Melbourne shortly before the new institution was formed.

Some departments were already administered jointly with UMIST and the two institutions only separated fully in 1993, so the new institution has been able to avoid some of the problems associated with other university mergers.

Multimedia

• Good University Guide table

Related Links

• University of Manchester

Multimedia

• Manchester University website

Development

A £400- million building and refurbishment programme, the largest ever in UK higher education, will be complete by the end of 2009 and another £250 million of investment is planned by 2015. At the same time, a raft of new professors has been appointed.

The aim is not only to break into higher education’s “golden triangle” of Oxford, Cambridge and London, but to make Manchester one of the top 25 universities in the world by 2015. By then, the aim is to have at least five Nobel laureates on the staff. The first joined in 2006 and there have been other highprofile appointments, such the novelist Martin Amis as Professor of Creative Writing.

Manchester celebrated its 150th anniversary with its best ratings to date, and was already going from strength to strength before the merger. Seven of the last dozen subjects to be assessed achieved maximum points for teaching quality – a record that none of its rivals could match – while the twelve subject areas judged internationally outstanding for research in 2001 trebled the haul five years earlier. The successful departments were spread equally between the arts and sciences, with three-quarters of the academics entered for assessment placed in the top two categories.

The university has been climbing The Times rankings, as well as reclaiming its place as the university with the largest number of applicants. The demand for places had been increasing, but applications were down by almost twice the national average at the start of 2008, after UCAS had reduced the number of choices per candidate from six to five. One of the priorities in the new institution’s founding strategy is to broaden the undergraduate intake, with a particular focus on increasing recruitment from the city and its surrounding area.

However, in addition to the normal bursary package for British students, Manchester is aiming eventually to have 750 awards for students from educationally deprived backgrounds in developing countries. UMIST’s legacy is a strong reputation among academics and employers alike in its specialist areas of engineering, science and management. Two thirds of its academics reached one of the top two out of seven categories in the last research assessments.

Subjects

Materials technology and health subjects were both 5* rated. Teaching ratings, too, were good, especially in engineering, and its graduates enjoyed a consistently excellent employment record. Surveys of employers frequently placed UMIST among their favourite recruiting grounds, helping to produce an unrivalled network of industrial sponsorship. Employers have rated Manchester’s careers service the best at any university .

The merger has produced the largest engineering school in the UK, with a £20-million budget and 1,200 students. A £14-million extension to the School of Chemistry, the second-largest in Britain, opened in 2007. There already was a federal business school, which is among the strengths of the merged institution, as is the medical school, which was rewarded for impressive teaching ratings with extra places in collaboration with Keele University. A new teaching block caters for the additional 230 places a year.

Student scene

The city’s famed youth culture and the university’s position at the heart of a huge student precinct already help to ensure keen competition for places – and hence high entry standards in most subjects. Sports facilities, which were already first rate, have improved still further since the city hosted the Commonwealth Games. Students get discount rates at the aquatics centre opened for the games on campus, for example. The city’s reputation for violent crime may be overstated, but the students’ union (which has the largest premises in the country) runs late-night minibuses, self-defence classes, and regular safety campaigns. Students tend to be fiercely loyal both to the university and their adopted city.

Times recommends

• Degree classifications not fit for purpose says watchdog
• Five essential tips for your year abroad
• Are students killing television?