Surrey has been one of the recent success stories of the university world, remaining true to the technological history while building a strong research base and a degree of financial independence envied by its peers.

Even some of the arts degrees carry a BSc and are highly vocational: four out of five undergraduates in all subjects undertake work experience.

Placements of one (or two half ) years, often taken abroad, mean that most degrees last four years. The format and the subject balance combine to keep Surrey at the head of the graduate employment league, as well as producing a healthy research income.

Indeed, it has taken to describing itself as the “University for Jobs” to ram the point home.

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Strengths

Recent expansion in healthcare, human sciences and performing arts has added to the traditional strengths in science and engineering.

The mix has been proving popular: the 37 per cent growth in applications in 2007 was almost the biggest at any university and Surrey was one of the few to register an increase at the start of 2008, despite the switch from six choices to five per applicant.

The 12 per cent rise was again among the highest at any university. The growth in demand for places has come at an opportune time: the university is planning to boost its numbers by 40 per cent, partly through overseas ventures.

An international institute in the Chinese city of Dalian, in partnership with Dongbei University, will be the first of these. Nearer home, Surrey is taking in the Guildford School of Acting and launching its first degree in English literature in 2008.

Cosmopolitan

All students are encouraged to enrol for a course at the European language centre, and a growing number of degrees, including a new range in engineering, have a language component.

The cosmopolitan feel is enhanced by one of the largest proportions of overseas students at any university – a feat which won Surrey a Queen’s Award for Export Achievement.

The 2,700 foreign students come from 140 different countries. Scores improved from a low base in the 2007 National Student Survey, with social policy, sociology and anthropology producing the highest levels of satisfaction.

Ratings

Teaching assessments were impressive, with near-perfect scores for economics, education, physics and astronomy, and electrical and electronic engineering, one of Surrey’s three top-rated research areas.

Health and sociology also won 5* research grades, leaving a third of the researchers in departments considered internationally outstanding – a proportion bettered by only four universities in Britain. Six out of ten reached one of the top two grades.

Another indication of the university’s research strength lies in the growing proportion of income derived from sources other than Government grants: up from 10 per cent to about 70 per cent in little over a decade. The Surrey Research Park is one of only three science parks still owned, funded and managed by the university that opened it, helping Surrey to amass one of the highest proportions of private funding at any British university.

Access

Both the proportions of undergraduates from working-class homes and from areas without a tradition of higher education are lower than the benchmark figures, which take account of the subject mix and entry standards. But the statistics agency has acknowledged that the explanation lies largely in the university’s location.

The projected dropout rate of 10.5 per cent is better than the national average. The compact campus is a ten-minute walk from the centre of Guildford. Most of the buildings date from the late 1960s, but the new business school and the gleaming European Institute of Health and Medical Sciences offer a striking contrast.

Shaped like a giant ship’s prow, the steel and glass building houses the large nursing and midwifery departments. A £12-million management building and an Advanced Technology Institute opened in 2002. The campus includes two lakes, playing fields and enough residential accommodation to enable all first-years to live in. A second campus, adjacent to the Stag Hill headquarters, is now being developed.

The new postgraduate medical school is intended to be the first stage in the development of a health campus, which will also contain more residential places for students and staff, as well as other academic buildings, leisure and sporting facilities. Guildford has plenty of cultural and recreational facilities, but riotous nightclubs are not encouraged. The campus is the centre of social life, and has seen recent improvements to leisure facilities.

The proximity of London is an attraction to many students, but also helps account for the high cost of living, which is not mitigated by the allowances available in the capital.

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