All about: Bournemouth University

Bournemouth University is a British higher education institution located in the county of Dorset, on England's south coast. Although known as Bournemouth University, its main campus is actually situated in the town of Poole, which lies adjacent to Bournemouth, though there are facilities located across the wider area. Bournemouth University enjoys a reputation for the quality of the professional training courses that it offers.

History and location

Bournemouth University began life as the Bournemouth Technical College in the early 20th century, but it became an institution of higher education in the 1970s. That was when it was known as the Bournemouth College of Technology. By 1976, it had been renamed the Dorset Institute of Higher Education, due to a county-wide review of the provision of further and higher education by the Dorset Education Committee. Inauguration In 1990, the institution was reincarnated as Bournemouth Polytechnic, and only two years later acquired university status, due to the Higher and Further Education Act of 1992. Bournemouth University was officially inaugurated on 27.11.92. Campus The main Talbot Campus of the university is located approximately two miles from Bournemouth town centre, and is the location of the student union, the student village, the sports and recreation centre, as well as the majority of the university's academic schools. The Lansdowne Campus is situated much closer to Bournemouth town centre, and is the location of the School of Health and Social Care, as well as the centre for postgraduate studies for the university's Business School.

Learning and lifestyle

A course search of the University of Bournemouth's prospectus reveals a wide range of options for potential students. The university has been highly ranked. Option One option available to potential students is the university's media school, which is the location of the only Centre for Excellence in Media Practice in England. The university's art school combines arts with performing arts, and allows students to specialise in contemporary theatre performance, dance or music theatre. Research The university also enjoys a reasonable reputation for research, with the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) of 2008, ranking the university as the fourth most improved UK university in terms of research quality. Major aspects of this work were also rated as "world leading" by the same survey. Achievements Further research achievements also followed in 2008 when BU won a
three-year research grant worth six million pounds. This was the largest ever grant awarded to BU, and came from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), being awarded in order to establish an Industrial Doctorate Centre in Computer Animation, working in cooperation with the University of Bath.