Birmingham City University

Birmingham City University (abbrev. as BCU; and previously Birmingham Polytechnic and the University of Central England in Birmingham) is a newly established British university in the city of Birmingham, England. It is the second largest of five universities in the city, the other four being Aston University, University of Birmingham, University College Birmingham, and Newman University.

 It is the third most highly ranked of the five universities in Birmingham according to the Complete University Guide, below both the University of Birmingham and Aston University.

 Initially established as the Birmingham College of Art with roots dating back to 1843, it was designated as a polytechnic in 1971 and gained university status in 1992.

The university has three main campuses serving four faculties, and offers courses in art and design, business, the built environment, computing, education, engineering, English, healthcare, law, the performing arts, social sciences, and technology.

A £125million extension to its campus in the city centre of Birmingham, part of the Eastside development of a new technology and learning quarter, is opening in two stages, with the first phase having opened its doors in 2013
.The university is a member of the million+ group of New Universities.

Roughly half of the university's full-time students are from the West Midlands, and a large percentage of these are from ethnic minorities. The university runs access and foundation programmes through an international network of associated universities and further education colleges, and has the highest intake of foreign students in the Birmingham area                  

                                  Birmingham Polytechnic

In the 1960s, changes were made to the higher education system creating an expansion of polytechnics as a more vocationally orientated alternative to the typical university.

The City of Birmingham Education Committee was invited to submit a scheme for the establishment of a polytechnic bringing together a number of different colleges in the city in 1967.

Late in 1969, the post of director of the polytechnic was advertised. Although the city lagged behind other parts of the country, Birmingham finally gained a polytechnic in 1971—then the 27th in the UKdesignated by the Education Secretary Margaret Thatcher as the City of Birmingham Polytechnic.

 This was the second polytechnic in Birmingham, the first — Birmingham Polytechnic Institution — having existed in the mid-19th century for ten years.

University of Birmingham

The University of Birmingham (informally Birmingham University) is located in the leafy suburb of Edgbaston outside Birmingham City Centre. It received its royal charter in 1900 as a successor to Queen's College, Birmingham (founded in 1828 as the Birmingham School of Medicine and Surgery) and Mason Science College (established in 1875 by Sir Josiah Mason), making it the first English civic or 'red brick' university to receive its own royal charter.

 It is a founding member of both the Russell Group of British research universities and the international network of research universities, Universitas 21.

The University of Birmingham was ranked 11th in the UK and 64th in the world in the QS World University Rankings for 2014-15.In 2013, Birmingham was named 'University of the Year 2014' in the Times Higher Education awards.

In an employability survey published by the New York Times, where CEOs and chairmans were asked to select the top universities which they recruited from, Birmingham placed 55th in the world.The Global Employability University Ranking conducted by THES places Birmingham at 57th world-wide. 

Birmingham is also ranked 4th in the UK for Graduate Prospects in The Times and The Sunday Times Good University Guide 2015.

The student population includes around 19,000 undergraduate and 9,000 postgraduate students, which is the 11th largest in the UK.The annual income of the institution for 2013–14 was £528.2 million, with an expenditure of £499 million.

The university is home to the Barber Institute of Fine Arts, housing works by Van Gogh, Picasso and Monet, the Lapworth Museum of Geology, the Cadbury Research Library home to the Mingana Collections of Middle Eastern manuscripts and the Chamberlain Collection, and the Joseph Chamberlain Memorial Clock Tower, which is a prominent landmark visible from many parts of the city.

Academics and alumni of the university include former British Prime Ministers Neville Chamberlain, and Stanley Baldwin,and eight Nobel laureates

                                           Queen's College

Although the earliest beginnings of the University were previously traced back to the Queen's College which is linked to William Sands Cox in his aim of creating a medical school along strictly Christian lines, unlike the London medical schools, further research has now revealed the roots of the Birmingham Medical School in the medical education seminars of Mr John Tomlinson, the first surgeon to the Birmingham Workhouse Infirmary, and later to the General Hospital. These classes were the first ever held outside London or south of the Scottish border in the winter of 1767–68.

 The first clinical teaching was undertaken by medical and surgical apprentices at the General Hospital, opened in 1779. The medical school which grew out of the Birmingham Workhouse Infirmary was founded in 1828 but Cox began teaching in December 1825. Queen Victoria granted her patronage to the Clinical Hospital in Birmingham and allowed it to be styled "The Queen's Hospital". It was the first provincial teaching hospital in England. In 1843, the medical college became known as Queen's College.

                              Mason Science College

In 1870, Sir Josiah Mason, the Birmingham industrialist and philanthropist, who made his fortune in making key rings, pens, pen nibs and electroplating, drew up the Foundation Deed for Mason Science College.

 The college was founded in 1875. It was this institution that would eventually form the nucleus of the University of Birmingham. In 1882, the Departments of Chemistry, Botany and Physiology were transferred to Mason Science College, soon followed by the Departments of Physics and Comparative Anatomy.

 The transfer of the Medical School to Mason Science College gave considerable impetus to the growing importance of that college and in 1896 a move to incorporate it as a university college was made.

 As the result of the Mason University College Act 1897 it became incorporated as Mason University College on 1 January 1898, with Joseph Chamberlain becoming the President of its Court of Governors

Nottingham Trent University

Nottingham Trent University (NTU) is a public university in Nottingham, England. It was founded as a new university in 1992 from Trent Polytechnic (later Nottingham Polytechnic).

 Its roots go back to 1843 with the establishment of the Nottingham Government School of Design which still exists within the university today. It is one of the largest universities in the UK with around 28,000 students split over three different campuses.

Nottingham Trent University was ranked in the number 700 and above (701+) category in the world by the QS World University Rankings.In 2008 The Complete University Guide named Nottingham Trent the "top post-1992 University" in the country.

 The university has "one of the best employability records of any university in England and Wales". It maintains close ties to over 6,000 businesses and 94% of students progress to full-time employment or further education within six months of graduating.The Guardian calls Nottingham Trent "the most environmentally friendly university in the country".

In 2009 it was awarded the title of "the most environmentally friendly university in the UK", by The People & Planet Green League (the only independent ranking of British universities' environmental and ethical performance).

 Also since 2009, 100% of the university's electricity has been generated by renewable sources.

The university has a strong research arm with, in 2008, 74% of the university's research considered of "international status" and "an impressive 8% ranked as world-leading".

The 2014 REF upgraded the status of the university's research, with 90% considered of either "world-leading", "internationally-excellent", or "internationally-recognised" status

History

The university was formed by the amalgamation of many separate institutions of higher education. It originated from the Nottingham Government School of Design founded in 1843.

In 1945, the Nottingham and District Technical College was established. In 1958, Nottingham Regional College of Technology opened and in 1959, the Nottingham College of Education began at Clifton. In 1964, Nottingham Regional College was opened and in 1966,

 the original Nottingham College of Design was linked with the Regional College. Together they merged and the institution was upgraded to Polytechnic status in 1970 to become 'Trent Polytechnic'. In 1975, it amalgamated with Nottingham College of Education and in 1988, the official name changed to 'Nottingham Polytechnic'.

Under the Further and Higher Education Act 1992 all Polytechnics and some higher education colleges became eligible for full university status; at this point, the institution officially became 'Nottingham Trent University

University of Nottingham

The University of Nottingham is a public research university based in Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, England, United Kingdom. It was founded as University College Nottingham in 1881 and granted a Royal Charter in 1948.

Nottingham's main campus, University Park, is situated on the outskirts of the City of Nottingham, with a number of smaller campuses and a teaching hospital (Queen's Medical Centre) located elsewhere in 

Nottinghamshire.

 Outside the United Kingdom, Nottingham has campuses in Semenyih, Malaysia and Ningbo, China. Nottingham is organised into five constituent faculties, within which there are more than 50 departments, institutes and research centres.

 Nottingham has about 44,000 students and 9,000 staff and had a total income of £520 million in 2012/13, of which £100 million was from research grants and contracts

Several of its subjects have been consistently ranked in the top ten, including Economics, Law, and Pharmacy.

 It is ranked 5th in England in terms of the number of students and 15th for the proportion of students who achieved AAB+ at A-level.

The university is one of 12 "elite" institutions that accommodates the top achieving students in England.

A 2014 survey suggested it is the most targeted university by the UK's top employers.

 In 2012 Nottingham was ranked 13th in the world in terms of the number of alumni listed among CEOs of the Fortune Global 500.

It is also ranked 2nd (joint with Oxford) in the 2012 Summer Olympics table of British medal winners.In the 2011 and 2014 GreenMetric World University Rankings, Nottingham was the world's most sustainable campus.

It is a member of the Association of Commonwealth Universities, the Virgo Consortium, the European University Association, the Russell Group, Universities UK, Universitas 21 and participates in the Sutton Trust Summer School programme.

The University of Nottingham traces its origins to the founding of an adult education school in 1798, and the University Extension Lectures inaugurated by the University of Cambridge in 1873—the first of their kind in the country.

However, the foundation of the university is generally regarded as being the establishment of University College Nottingham, in 1881 as a constituent college of the University of London.

In 1875, an anonymous donor provided £10,000 to establish the work of the Adult Education School and Cambridge Extension Lectures on a permanent basis, and the Corporation of Nottingham agreed to erect and maintain a building for this purpose and to provide funds to supply the instruction.

The foundation stone of the college was duly laid in 1877 by former UK Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone, and the college's distinctive neo-gothic building on Shakespeare Street was formally opened in 1881 by Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany.

In 1881, there were four professors – of Literature, Physics, Chemistry and Natural Science. New departments and chairs quickly followed: Engineering in 1884, Classics combined with Philosophy in 1893, French in 1897 and Education in 1905; in 1905 the combined Department of Physics and Mathematics 

became two separate entities; in 1911 Departments of English and Mining were created, in 1912, Economics, and Geology combined with Geography; History in 1914, Adult Education in 1923 and Pharmacy in 1925.