One of the largest counties without a university of its own has put that right through the amalgamation of a former teacher training college and an arts institute, with the addition of the two Cumbrian campuses of the University of Central Lancashire.

The new University of Cumbria is divided between Carlisle, Penrith, Ambleside and Lancaster, as well as running a specialist teacher education centre in east London.

There are also partnerships with the four further education colleges in the county to provide higher education locally.

The new university, which has more than 12,000 students, was finally established in 2007, after a series of false starts. It is the largest provider of higher education in Cumbria by a considerable margin.

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Campuses

There are four faculties: arts, design and media; business, social sciences and sport; health, medical science and social care; and science and natural resources.

The biggest of the component parts is the former St Martin’s College, which was founded in Lancaster by the Church of England in 1964 to train teachers. It took in a nursing college and another teacher training college, in Ambleside, during the 1990s.

The main base remains in Lancaster, a ten-minute walk from the town centre, with a modern library and excellent sports facilities, including a £2.5-million sports complex, gymnastics centre and fitness centre.

The Ambleside campus has an outdoor studies centre and a new learning resources centre. There are plans for more residences and improved sports facilities. The nearest railway station is a 20-minute drive away at Windermere.

There are two main sites in Carlisle, the larger of which is in a parkland setting close to the River Eden. The second campus, closer to the city centre, boasts a new Learning Gateway, an innovative multimedia learning resource centre, and a sports centre with a four-court sports hall and well-equipped fitness room.

The former Cumbria Institute of the Arts can trace its history in Carlisle back to 1822, eventually becoming the only specialist institute of the arts in the north west of England and one of only a small number of such institutions in the country. The creative arts are one of the main areas for development in the university’s initial planning.

The main Cumbrian campus acquired from the University of Central Lancashire is a mile outside Penrith, in landscaped gardens overlooking the fells, and caters mainly for agriculture and forestry. A former agricultural college, it has broadened into related areas such as environmental management and other subjects not directly related to land-based industries.

Courses include outdoor education and leadership, geography, business, tourism, sport and computing. Library and learning resource facilities have been improved and residential accommodation expanded. There are also two farms, one adjacent to the campus and a working hill farm 15 miles away within the national park.

Longer term

In the longer term, the university is planning a £160 million transformation of its estate, almost half of which will go on a new campus in Carlisle. The proposals include plans for further development at all the existing centres to maintain a “Cumbria-wide presence”.

Cumbria made its debut in the lower reaches of The Times league table and made some progress last year. Some of the statistics used still relate to the combined scores of St Martin’s College and the Cumbria Institute.

However, the university was bottom of the initial rankings from the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise, recording only a small amount of ‘world-leading’ research in theology, divinity and religious studies. There was some improvement in the National Survey results published in 2008, but the university remained close to the bottom 20, with geography and environmental science producing the most satisfied students.

The early focus of the university is on attracting more students from a region of low participation in higher education, as well as on serving the social and economic needs of the county. Applications were up by 12 per cent at the start of 2009, following a substantial increase the previous year when there was a decline at most universities.

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