The most successful of the first wave of new universities, Warwick was derided by many in its early years for its close links with business and industry.

Few are critical today. Gordon Brown described it as “one of the great universities, absolutely central to the industrial, scientific and technological future of our country.”

Both teaching and research are very highly rated, but the university’s mission statement still stresses the extension of access to higher and continuing education and community links.

There is a smaller proportion of independent school students than at most of the leading universities – less than a quarter – although this does not translate into large numbers of working-class undergraduates.

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The share of places going to students from the lowest social classes and the representation from areas sending few young people to higher education are both lower than the national average for Warwick’s subjects and entry qualifications. But the mix helps to produce one of the lowest dropout rates in Britain. Warwick puts almost a third of its income from top-up fees into bursaries and financial support – one of the highest proportions among the old universities.

Teaching assessments were outstanding, with seven maximum scores, and the university’s one appearance in the National Student Survey produced respectable results. Language students were the most satisfied. The university was awarded a national teaching centre in theatrical performance, in partnership with the Royal Shakespeare Company, and is collaborating with Oxford Brookes University on another centre to “reinvent” undergraduate research.

Subjects

Six subjects were rated internationally outstanding for research: business, economics, English, theatre studies and applied mathematics and statistics. Nine out of ten academics entered for assessment were placed in the top two categories, preserving Warwick’s place among the top five research universities.

The science park, one of the first in Britain, is among the most successful. While other leading universities were trying to cover the whole range of academic disciplines, Warwick pursued a selective policy. Without the expense of medicine, dentistry or veterinary science to bear, the university invested shrewdly in business, science and engineering. However, the temptation of medicine has proved too much to bear, and the university now has a thriving graduate entry medical school, with more than 2,000 students.

The university is to lead a new regional health sciences centre, which will include an anatomy training and clinical skills centre for Warwick students and local surgeons. Another deviation has seen the university embracing the Government’s two-year Foundation degrees.

One of the few leading universities to offer the vocational programmes, Warwick is running three courses in education and community enterprise, the latter taught by a local further education college. With around ten applicants for every place on conventional degree courses, many departments stick rigidly to offers averaging more than an A and two Bs at A level.

Applications have been buoyant, holding steady at the start of 2008, when the number of choices per applicant was cut from six to five. Warwick has been building up its numbers in science and engineering, as other universities have struggled to fill their places.

Development

The business school has also been growing rapidly, with a new £15- million extension now complete, while computer science has acquired new, upgraded facilities. Hundreds of millions of pounds have been spent on the campus, which has often resembled a building site. However, students are about to welcome a second significant extension to union facilities. Work is almost complete on a new £12.5- million building to house a “digital laboratory” for manufacturing and engineering research and a new indoor tennis centre opened in 2008.

A suite of new plant science labs and a new base for the partnership with Royal Shakespeare Company will follow shortly. The 750-acre campus is three miles south of Coventry, where many students choose to live, and three times as far from Warwick. University accommodation is plentiful and the Arts Centre is one of the largest of its type in Britain. The sports facilities are both extensive and conveniently placed on campus, where there is a new sports centre with 25-metre swimming pool and a range of other facilities.

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