University of Portsmouth

The University of Portsmouth is a university in the city of Portsmouth, England. It was previously known as Portsmouth Polytechnic until 1992, when it was granted university status through the Further and Higher Education Act 1992. The University is a member of the University Alliance and The Channel Islands Universities Consortium.

History

The University was founded as the Portsmouth and Gosport School of Science and the Arts in 1869. Due to the dependence on shipping and trade to the city, the main function of the college was to train the engineers and skilled workmen who went on to work at the city docks, as well as at the large Royal Navy dockyard situated in Portsmouth. However, due to a decline in shipping and population since World War II, when large swathes of the city were destroyed by German bombing, the college was forced to diversify its syllabus and teaching in order to attract new students. In the expansion of British Higher Education in the 1960s, the college was renamed Portsmouth Polytechnic and given the power to award degrees accredited and validated by the CNAA. The expansion of the polytechnic continued and in the late 1980s, it was one of the largest polytechnics in the UK. In 1992, Portsmouth and other polytechnics were granted university status with power to validate their own degrees under the provision of the Further and Higher Education Act 1992. The formal inauguration of the University of Portsmouth was celebrated at a ceremony in the Portsmouth Guildhall on 7 July 1992.

Portsmouth in top 2% of world’s universities

The University of Portsmouth is again ranked in the top 400 universities in the world in the most recent Times Higher Education World University Rankings published in 2013. The independent rankings place Portsmouth in the top two per cent of universities worldwide and among the best in Europe. Times Higher Education describes its global rankings as the most comprehensive, sophisticated and balanced global rankings in the world. They are collated using 13 rigorous performance indicators and are the only global rankings to judge world-class research institutions against all of their core activities – teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook. The University of Portsmouth’s international outlook is judged to be a key strength. The rankings this year place the United Kingdom second only to the US in terms of the number of world-class universities.

Quality and standards

Like all universities, we regard quality and standards as very important aspects of our work. You can access the policies and processes we use to assure and improve the quality of the learning, teaching and student support in the University. You can also find details of the outcomes of internal and external reviews such as those conducted by Professional Bodies. Our Quality Management team administers information relating to academic committees, assessment and regulations, collaborative programmes, and accreditation of our courses by Professional, Statutory and Regulatory Bodies. More information about quality management can be found here.