UCLan recognised across various national ratings but Times Good University Guide ranking is questioned

UCLan’s two new awards

UCLan has achieved a silver award in the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF), a national scheme which encourages improvement in teaching, learning, and achieving positive outcomes for students from their studies.

Run by the Office for Students (OfS), the overall judgement is drawn from looking back at the last four years of performance in terms of student satisfaction, continuation, completion, and progression metrics, alongside a 25-page written submission, and a separate, independent submission led by the Students’ Union.

Achieving a Teaching Excellence Framework Silver Award means the university’s student experience and outcomes have been formally assessed as typically very high quality, and there may be some outstanding features.

UCLan’s TEF Silver Award will last for four years and students are encouraged to use TEF ratings as useful context when deciding what and where to study.

The unviersity has also once again been nationally recognised for its very high levels of engagement with local regeneration and with public and third sector organisations.

Results of the third Knowledge Exchange Framework (KEF), published last Wednesday (September 27), show the institution ranked in the top 20% of English Higher Education Institutions in the areas of local growth and regeneration; working with the public and third sector; and continuous professional development (CPD) and graduate start-ups. UCLan also scored highly in the areas of intellectual property and commercialisation; public and community engagement; and research partnerships.

UCLan supports or participates in many different organisations and sector bodies, represents Lancashire at regional and national levels (including in discussions with government departments), and helps local employees gain new skills through continuous professional development courses and apprenticeship programmes.

UCLan now has nearly 1,900 degree apprentices, from 750 businesses, on 30 programmes across a wide range of sectors, with five more courses starting this month.

In recent years, the university’s regeneration in Preston has seen investment up to £200 million to transform the centre of the campus, including the creation of the university square and student centre. These sit alongside the Engineering and Innovation Centre which houses a selection of research and knowledge exchange teams working on projects with businesses in areas such as drone technology, robotics, and medtech.

What has UCLan said about these two awards?

Commenting on the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF), Vice-Chancellor Professor Graham Baldwin said: “Transforming the lives of students is at the heart of everything we do at the University of Central Lancashire, so to be recognised with a TEF silver for the qualities we care about most is fantastic news.