Sussex’s all-round academic reputation has seldom been higher.

The university is close to the top 100 in the world rankings published by The Times Higher Education/QS, and rates higher still for the arts and social sciences.

Sir Harry Kroto won the 1996 Nobel Prize for Chemistry and Professor Anthony Leggett took the 2003 Physics prize for work carried out at Sussex.

Although no subject was considered internationally outstanding in the last Research Assessment Exercise, more than half were placed in the next category.

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No subject dropped below grade 4, despite a high proportion of academics entered for assessment. The university now generates more than a third of its income from private sources, largely in research contracts. Philosophy and sociology scored maximum points for teaching quality, with politics and inter-national relations, mathematics and American studies – a long-established strength – the best of the rest.

Access

The demand for places has been strong, especially in subjects such as such as social work, environmental science, and even physics. With the university taking more postgraduates in recent years, the result has been increasing competition for degree places. But this trend came to a sudden halt at the start of 2008, with a 20 per cent drop in applications, exacerbated by the switch from six choices per applicant to five.

The decline was more than twice the national average. Sussex’s earlier successes in attracting applicants was said to be due partly to targeting schools in London and the South East, as well as to innovations such as weekly campus tours for prospective applicants and drop-in arrangements for mature students.

Subjects

A revised portfolio of arts subjects seems to have helped, but a similar exercise for the sciences in 2006 caused bitter controversy with plans (later reversed) to drop chemistry. The interdisciplinary approach that has always been Sussex’s trademark has been re-examined to adapt this 1960s concept for the 21st century. The eleven schools have been reduced to five and students are being offered a clearer framework so that they are fully aware of the combinations available to them. Student support is being improved through a revamped personal tutor system and a 50 per cent increase in the number of student advisers.

Arts and social science students are still in the majority, but the life sciences are not far behind. Sussex is committed to taking candidates with no family tradition of higher education and has much larger numbers of mature students than most of its peer group of institutions. The proportion of working-class students and the share of places going to those from areas with little tradition of higher education are both lower than the statistics agency’s benchmark figures, but this is attributed to the university’s south coast location.

The projected dropout rate of more than 11 per cent is around than the national average for the subjects on offer. The university was only just outside the bottom ten in the 2007 National Student Survey, when other campus universities had many of the most satisfied students in the country. However, an earlier survey of graduates five years after leaving Sussex showed an enviable employment record.

Student scene

The university is based in an 18th-century park at Falmer, close to the South Downs and four miles from the centre of Brighton. Sir Basil Spence’s original buildings have been supplemented by new developments. The library has been extended and the language centre recently refurbished.

Relations with neighbouring Brighton University are good. The two institutions succeeded in a joint bid for a medical school, which opened in 2003 and has since recorded big increases in applications. The Brighton and Sussex Medical School is split between the Royal Sussex County Hospital and the two universities’ Falmer campuses. Undergraduates can take a year abroad in many subjects. Some courses offer joint qualifications with Continental universities, and those returning from a year abroad are given priority, with first years, for more than 3,000 residential places on campus, and more accommodation is being built.

Sports facilities are good, and the university has launched initiatives in basketball and hockey to entice top performers. Sussex has always attracted overseas students in large numbers and has seen big increases recently, but a high proportion of the remainder are from the London area, where many return at weekends. As a result, the well-appointed campus can be quiet, although there is no shortage of social events, and Brighton has plenty to offer.

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