| University of Sheffield | |
|---|---|
| Motto | Latin: Rerum cognoscere causas |
| Motto in English | To discover the causes of things |
| Established | 1905 1897 - University College of Sheffield |
| Type | Public |
| Endowment | £36 million[1] |
| Chancellor | Sir Peter Middleton |
| Vice-Chancellor | Prof. Keith Burnett |
| Admin. staff | 5,306 |
| Students | 25,700[2] |
| Undergraduates | 18,480[2] |
| Postgraduates | 7,225[2] |
| Location | Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England, UK |
| Campus | Urban |
| Colours | Black & Gold |
| Affiliations | Russell Group, WUN, EUA, ACU, N8 Group, White Rose, Yorkshire Universities |
| Website | www.sheffield.ac.uk |
The University of Sheffield is a research university based in the city of Sheffield in South Yorkshire, England. It is one of the original 'red brick' universities and is a member of the Russell Group of leading research intensive universities. It was ranked 40th in the world's top 100 universities by the Global University Ranking Study 2009[3], and 17th in the United Kingdom in the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise (RAE)[4][3] and is consistently ranked amongst the top 20 universities in the United Kingdom and Europe according to The Good University Guide.[5] It was the Sunday Times University of the Year in 2001. In 2011, QS World University Rankings[6] placed Sheffield as the 72nd university worldwide.
Furthermore, the university is ranked amongst both the UK's and world's Top 100 universities by the Shanghai Jiao Tong (SJTU) and Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings, and the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise found 41 submissions out of 49 of Sheffield's research to contain more than 50% of "world-leading" and "internationally excellent" research, which made Sheffield among the Top Ten in the Russell Group.[7][8] The university has produced five Nobel Prize winners so far.
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The University of Sheffield was originally formed by the merger of three colleges. The Sheffield School of Medicine was founded in 1828, followed in 1879 by the opening of Firth College by Mark Firth, a steel manufacturer, to teach arts and science subjects. Firth College then helped to fund the opening of the Sheffield Technical School in 1884 to teach applied science, the only major faculty the existing colleges did not cover. The three institutions merged in 1897 to form the University College of Sheffield.[9] Sheffield is one of the six red brick universities.
It was originally envisaged that the University College would join Manchester, Liverpool and Leeds as the fourth member of the federal Victoria University. However, the Victoria University began to split up before this could happen and so the University College of Sheffield received its own Royal Charter in 1905 and became the University of Sheffield.
From 200 full-time students in 1905, the University grew slowly until the 1950s and 1960s when it began to expand rapidly. Many new buildings (including the famous Arts Tower) were built and student numbers increased to their present levels of just under 26,000. In 1987 the University began to collaborate with its once would-be partners of the Victoria University by co-founding the Northern Consortium; a coalition for the education and recruitment of international students.
In 1995, the University took over the Sheffield and North Trent College of Nursing and Midwifery, which greatly increased the size of the medical faculty. In 2005, the South Yorkshire Strategic Health Authority announced that it would split the training between Sheffield and Sheffield Hallam University - however, the University decided to pull out of providing preregistration nursing and midwifery training due to "costs and operational difficulties".[10]
There are two official histories of the university:
The University has five faculties[11] plus an International Faculty in Thessaloniki, Greece.[11]
There are several bodies which govern the University.
Members of the UEB are:
The Court is a large body which fosters relations between the University and the community, and includes lay members. Ex-officio members of the Court include all the MPs of Sheffield, the Bishops of Sheffield and Hallam, and the Chief Constable of South Yorkshire Police.[12] It also includes representatives of professional bodies such as the Arts Council, Royal Society and the General Medical Council.[13]
The Council manages the University's business side (finance and property).[12]
The Senate manages the academic side of the University. It is the highest academic authority of the University.[12] The Members of the Senate are:[14]
The brand (encompassing the visual identity) is centred on the theme of "discovery", led by the Latin motto from the coat of arms "Rerum Cognoscere Causas" – "to discover the causes of things".
The visual identity includes two specially-designed fonts, TUOS Blake (sans-serif) and TUOS Stephenson (serif).[15] It has been applied across print, screen and other areas such as signage, vehicle livery and merchandising. The project was key to the University's Marketing Department receiving "HEIST Marketing Team of the Year, 2005".[16]
Sheffield was the Sunday Times University of the Year in 2001 and has consistently appeared as one of their top-20 institutions. Just three universities nationally have more than Sheffield's 30 top-rated subjects for teaching excellence and only five have a greater number than the 35 subject areas at Sheffield deemed to have conducted world-class research in the most recent ratings.[5]
The University of Sheffield is rated 8th in the UK, 18th in Europe and 69th in the world in an annual academic ranking of the top 500 universities worldwide published in August 2010. Shanghai Jiao Tong University evaluated the universities using several research performance indicators, including the number of highly cited researchers, academic performance, articles in the periodicals Science and Nature, and the number of Nobel prize-winners. A separate ranking, published in the US by Newsweek magazine, and released in August 2006, ranked Sheffield 9th in the UK, 18th in Europe and 70th in the world in a list of the Global Top 100 Universities. The University is rated 12th in the UK, 22nd in Europe and 68th in the world in the Times Higher Education Supplement's November 2007 ranking of the top 100 universities in the world.
| 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| QS World University Rankings | 72nd[17] | 69th[18] | 82nd[19] | 76th[20] | 68th[21] | 64th[22] | 49th[23] |
| Times Higher Education World University Rankings | 101st[24] | 137th[25] | |||||
| Academic Ranking of World Universities | 97th[26] | 88th[27] | 81st[28] | 77th[29] | 65thnd[30] | 62nd[31] | 69th[32] |
| Global University Ranking | 40th[3] | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | ||
| Newsweek - The Top 100 Global Universities | 70th[33] | N/A | N/A |
| 2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 | 2001 | 2000 | 1999 | 1998 | 1997 | 1996 | 1995 | 1994 | 1993 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Times Good University Guide | 17th[34] | 18th[34] | 18th | 18th[34] | 12th[34] | 18th[35] | 11th | 26th[36] | 25th= | 18th | 17th[37] | 20th | 20th | 13th | 12th | 16th | 20th= | 15th= | 12th= | 19th= |
| Guardian University Guide | 33rd[38] | 31st[38] | 30th[38] | 17th[38] | 23rd[39] | 12th[40] | 8th[41] | 21st[37][42] | ||||||||||||
| Sunday Times University Guide | 13th[34] | 15th[34] | 15th[34] | 18th[34] | 19th[34] | 11th[43] | 20th[44] | 14th[44] | 8th[43] | 5th=[43] | 20th[43] | 10th[43] | 22nd[43] | 17th[43] | 9th[43] | |||||
| Independent / Complete | 26th[45] | 25th[46] | 26th[47] | 25th[47] | ||||||||||||||||
| Daily Telegraph | 25th[48] | 13th | 14th | |||||||||||||||||
| FT | 23rd[49] | 28th[50] | 21st[51] | 29th[52] |
The University of Sheffield is not a campus university, though most of its buildings are located in fairly close proximity to each other. The centre of the University's presence lies one mile to the west of Sheffield city centre, where there is a mile-long collection of buildings belonging almost entirely to the University. This area includes the Sheffield Students' Union (housed next door to University House), the Octagon Centre, Firth Court, the Geography and Planning building, the Alfred Denny Building (housing natural sciences and including a small museum), the Dainton and Richard Roberts Buildings (chemistry) and the Hicks Building (mathematics and physics). The Grade II*-listed library and Arts Tower are also located in this cluster. The Arts Tower houses one of Europe's few surviving examples of a Paternoster lift. A concourse under the main road (the A57) allows students to easily move between these buildings. Amongst the more recent additions to the universities estate are The Information Commons, opened in 2007, The Soundhouse (2008) and the Jessop West building (2009), the first UK project by renowned Berlin architects Sauerbruch Hutton.[53] In addition, throughout 2010 the Western Bank Library received a £3.3m restoration and refurbishment, the University of Sheffield Union of Students underwent a £5m rebuild, and work commenced on a multimillion pound refurbishment of the grade II* listed Arts Tower to extend its lifespan by 30 years.[54]
To the east lies St George's Campus, named after St George's Church (now a lecture theatre and postgraduate residence). The campus is centred on Mappin Street, home to a number of University buildings, including the Faculty of Engineering (partly housed in the Grade II-listed Mappin Building) and the University of Sheffield School of Management and Department of Computer Science. The University also maintains the Turner Museum of Glass in this area. The University recently converted the listed old Victorian Jessop Hospital for Women buildings into the new home of the Faculty of Music. The adjacent Edwardian buildings and a large vacant plot of land opposite St George's Church are awaiting development as and when funding permits.
Further west lies Weston Park, the Weston Park Museum, the Harold Cantor Gallery, sports facilities in the Crookesmoor area, and the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health around the Royal Hallamshire Hospital (although these subjects are taught in the city's extensive teaching hospitals under the Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, and throughout South Yorkshire and North East Lincolnshire). It is in this area that the new £12m Sheffield Institute for Translational Neuroscience (SITraN), opened by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in November 2010, is located.[55]
Further west still lie the University halls of residence. These comprise Tapton Hall of Residence (now vacant awaiting redevelopment into private housing), The Endcliffe Student Village comprising the established Halifax and Stephenson Halls (although much of the Halifax Hall has been converted to conferencing rooms), Endcliffe Vale Flats, Crescent Flats, Crewe Flats, and newly built (2007) Burbage, Stanage, Howden, Froggatt, Millstone, Rivelin, Yarncliffe, Birchen, Curbar, Cratcliffe, Lawrencefield and Derwent, as well as University owned private houses. A new student village was completed (but not fully occupied) for the 2009/10 academic year with 1200 beds on the site of the former Ranmoor Halls of Residence, now known as the Ranmoor Village. Accommodation in both the Endcliffe and Ranmoor villages is rented out during the summer recess to visiting conference delegations etc.
The Manvers campus, at Wath-on-Dearne between Rotherham and Barnsley, was where the majority of nursing was taught, but this has now been mothballed.
The University of Sheffield has been described by The Times as one of the powerhouses of British higher education.[5] The University is a member of the Russell Group, the European University Association, the Worldwide Universities Network and the White Rose University Consortium.
In the latest round of Teaching Quality Assessments (TQA 1993-2001) Sheffield ranked third in the UK for the highest number of "Excellent" rated subject areas. Nearly 75% of all teaching subjects achieved a 24/24 (Excellent) score.
The University of Sheffield is rated 8th in the UK, 24th in Europe and 77th in the world in an annual academic ranking of the top 500 universities worldwide published in August 2008.[56] A separate ranking, published in the US by Newsweek magazine, and released in August 2006, ranked Sheffield 9th in the UK, 18th in Europe and 70th in the world in a list of the Global Top 100 Universities.
The University has won Queen's Anniversary Prizes in 1998, 2000, 2002 and 2007.[57] It was also named the Sunday Times University of the Year in 2001.
In the 2007 National Student Survey, five of the University of Sheffield's departments reached the top of the table for overall student satisfaction among the UK universities. "Dentistry, Electronic and Electrical Engineering, Philosophy, East Asian Studies and courses in Modern Languages and Modern Languages with Interpreting returned the highest satisfaction scores in the UK".[58]
Major research partners and clients include Boeing, Rolls Royce, Siemens, Unilever, Boots, AstraZeneca, GSK, ICI, and Slazenger, as well as UK and overseas government agencies and charitable foundations. As an example, the Department of Architecture, under the guidance of Professor Jeremy Till, are currently involved in a research project with development and disaster relief charity Article 25 to investigate the possibilities of building sustainably in arid regions.
For many years the University has been engaged in theological publishing through Sheffield Academic Press and JSOT Press.
The University of Sheffield is also a partner organisation in Higher Futures, a collaborative association of institutions set up under the government's Lifelong Learning Networks initiative, to co-ordinate vocational and work-based education.[59]
As well as the research carried out in departments, the university has 84 specialized research centres or institutes.[60]
The University of Sheffield's 25,000 students arrive mostly from the UK, but include more than 3,700 international students from 120 different countries. The University employs nearly 6,000 people, including almost 1,400 academic staff.
The University of Sheffield Union of Students was founded in 1906. It has two bars (Bar One – which has a book-able function room with its own bar, The Raynor Lounge – and The Interval); three club venues (Fusion, Foundry and Octagon); one off-campus public house (The Fox and Duck in Broomhill[61]); and coffee shops, restaurants, shops, a supermarket, the cinema Film Unit, a fully functioning and student run theatre company (suTCo), a student radio station called Forge Radio, its own newspaper, Forge Press, and about two hundred student societies and many sports teams.
The Union hosts a variety of advice and support services. Real-time information can be found by following @SSiDSheffield or @sheffieldunion on Twitter.
In November 2009 a development project began to redevelop the Students' Union building, funded by £5m by the HEFCE, which was completed and re-opened in September 2010. Works centred on improving circulation around the building by aligning previously disjointed floors, improving internal access between the Union building and neighbouring University House, and constructing a striking new entrance and lobby that incorporates the university's traditional colours of black and gold.
The annual "Varsity Challenge" takes place between teams from the University and its rival Sheffield Hallam University in over 30 events.
As well as rag week (a week of raising money ran by the University of Sheffield's 'Raising and Giving' Committee), students used to raise funds by taking part in the Pyjama Jump pub crawl, cross-dressed only in nightwear in mid-winter: the men often dressed in nighties or in drag featuring mini-skirts and fishnet tights, and the women in pyjamas.[62] This event was banned in 1997 following the hospitalisation of several students.[63] Another RAG tradition is Spiderwalk, a 12.5 mile trek through the city and the Peak District through the night; other societies run fund-raising activities throughout the night, such as a 24-hour role-playing event. Sheffield's students are also very active when it comes to volunteering for good causes. The Union's "SheffieldVolunteering" scheme is one of the country's most active and well-recognised student volunteering schemes and has won various national acclaims over the years.
The University has 26 varsity sports (sports contested in varsity). The University sports colours are black and gold.
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Male |
Female |
Mixed |
The University's Faculty of Pure Science may boast an association with five Nobel Prizes, two for the Department of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology:
And three to its Department of Chemistry:
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