One of the first new universities to be awarded a medical school (in collaboration with Exeter University), Plymouth has been carrying out major restructuring to concentrate activities in its home city.

The aim is to break into the research elite while still serving the region through teaching.

The most controversial element of the plans involved the transfer to Plymouth of courses from the Seale-Hayne agricultural campus, near Newton Abbot, and the arts and humanities programme based in Exeter.

Education courses from the Exmouth campus are also transferring to the main North Hill campus next year.

The plans were part of an academic reorganisation which divided the university into six faculties and included a big programme of capital investment.

Facilities

It has seen the opening of a £30-million headquarters and a second teaching building for the Peninsula Medical School. The library has been extended and upgraded with 24-hour study facilities and the students’ union has also been refurbished.

A £35-million arts complex opened this year, housing the Faculty of Arts and the Plymouth Arts Centre and providing the focal point for a “cultural quarter” around the university. Teaching facilities and residential accommodation for the education courses transferring from Exmouth will cost even more, while a £10.75 million building for the Faculty of Health & Social Work will include sports facilities as well as teaching space.

The Peninsula Medical School has quickly established itself with applicants and was the only successful bidder for a new dental school in the last national competition. The school, which will train 64 dentists a year, opens this year. With campuses in Plymouth, Exeter, Truro and Taunton, along with teaching facilities in Bristol, the university’s Faculty of Health and Social Work is the largest provider of nurse, midwifery and health professional education and training in the South West.

As a polytechnic, its title laid claim to the whole of southwest England, but although the university chose to name itself after its Plymouth base, it maintains a strong regional role.

It is a partner in the Combined Universities in Cornwall (CUC) initiative, which aims to increase the provision of further and higher education in one of the few counties without its own university.

Plymouth has also established a unique relationship with its 18 partner colleges, which spread from Cornwall to Somerset, through a faculty devoted entirely to serving their 5,300 students taking university courses. They have become the University of Plymouth Colleges, sharing £2 million in capital investment.

Access

The intake reflects Plymouth’s position as the working-class hub of the South West, with nine students out of ten state-educated and almost a third from the poorest social classes. The projected dropout rate of 16 per cent is marginally below the national average for the courses and entry grades.

Although the university is still best known for marine studies, with 160 researchers in a Marine Institute established last year, its top teaching scores came in civil engineering, building, psychology, nursing and hospitality, each of which narrowly missed out on full marks.

Plymouth was chosen to house no fewer than four national teaching centres: in health and social care placements; experiential learning in environmental and natural sciences; institutional partnerships; and education for sustainable development. The nine National Teaching Fellowships won by its academics are unmatched by any other university.

Research

Plymouth also has a long-standing commitment to research. More than a third of the academics were entered for the last research assessment exercise, with computer science, psychology and art history all rated nationally outstanding with significant work of international excellence.

The university offers a lively social scene with excellent and recently upgraded facilities for water sports as well as a thriving nightlife. An £850,000 fitness centre has improved the sports facilities, while a range of sports scholarships and bursaries will help to support high-flyers. A £15 million scheme has also allowed the construction of a 1,300-bed student village.

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