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The University of Southampton is a British university situated in the city of Southampton, on the south coast of Great Britain. The university has a world-wide reputation for high-quality research, and is a member of the Russell Group of research-led British universities. According to the Sunday Times newspaper league table, Southampton is perennially in the top ten for research (its primary focus), while in 2002 it came 3rd overall (out of around 200 British institutions). Southampton is a member of the Worldwide Universities Network and has close links with MIT in the United States.

The University's main buildings are situated on a large site on the Highfield Campus in Highfield, but the university has other campuses elsewhere around the city: at Boldrewood (biomedical sciences), New College (formerly La Sainte Union College), Southampton General Hospital and on the waterfront at the National Oceanography Centre. It also has a campus in the nearby city of Winchester which is the home of the university's fine & performing arts departments (formerly the independent institution Winchester School of Art, but now an integral part of the university). The Avenue Campus houses most of the Humanities subjects taught at the University, including History, English, Philosophy and Modern Languages. The Centre for Language Study is based at Avenue Campus, but there is also an equally large and well-equipped branch at New College Music is taught on the Highfield Campus.

Southampton is probably best known as an engineering, science and social science university. In the most recent RAE assessment (2001), it has the only engineering faculty in the country to receive the highest rating (5*) across all disciplines. According to the Times Higher Educational Supplement, Southampton has the second largest research income among British universities for the physical sciences and mathematics, and the third largest research income for engineering and technology. The university is also strong in other disciplines - in archaeology, the first three professors produced by Southampton later became heads of archaeology at Oxford, Cambridge and University College London. The music department is also renowned, benefiting from the Turner Sims concert hall, situated in the middle of the university's Highfield campus. In addition, the university is home to the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton (formerly Southampton Oceanography Centre), a leading research centre for oceanography. The university places great emphasis on inter-disciplinary cooperation and on collaboration with industry. This is most evident in the University's Centre for Enterprise and Innovation, which is jointly run by Faculty of Engineering and the School of Management. This focus has recently been augmented by the establishment of a separate Institiute for Entrepreneurship.

The University's Professor David Payne FRS CBE invented the optical amplifier, without which fibre optic cables would not work. Professor Payne is also Chairman of Photonics, a commercial company which is a spin-off of this research. Former head of the Department of Electronics and Computer Science, Professor Tony Hey CBE, is now Corporate Vice-President of Microsoft UK. Another Southampton Professor, Martin Fleischmann, Professor of Electrochemistry, came to notoriety in 1989 when, along with a research collaborator, he claimed to have produced cold fusion in a laboratory. Subsequent researchers were unable to substantiate his claims. In 2004, the inventor of the World Wide Web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, accepted a part-time post as Professor of Computer Science at the University.

Faculties, schools, and centres

The School of Management (from 2008, the Lloyd’s School of Management)

The City of London’s insurance market, Lloyd’s, will move its marine insurance and services operation to Southampton in 2008 (see press release - Lloyd's move marine operations to Southampton). Lloyd’s will share a new building with the University of Southampton’s School of Management, which will itself be re-branded as the "Lloyd’s School of Management" to recognise a financial gift from Lloyd's. The practice of corporations and business schools sharing resources and facilities is well established in some countries but this will be the first ‘professional campus’ in the UK.

Lloyd’s began as a business which registered and insured shipping interests in Edward Lloyd’s London coffee shop in 1760. Lloyd’s is not expected to move all of its business away from London: it will maintain its building at the heart of the City and the majority of its UK-based international insurance will continue to be run from there. The three parts of Lloyd’s business that will move to Southampton are 1) marine insurance and ship registry, 2) executive education and training and 3) external business consulting. The research needs of these business functions, as well as those of Lloyd’s other business operations, are expected to draw upon academic research produced by the University of Southampton. One of the primary attractions of the University of Southampton over other UK universities is that Southampton hosts the UK’s national Centre for Risk Research. Cutting edge risk models are essential tools for insurers to assess risk accurately and thus set insurance premiums at appropriate levels. The executive education and training business will work closely with the School of Management. The two institutions will share teaching staff and facilities. The School of Management has an external consulting business of its own, which has provided management consulting services and tailored executive training to the defence, nuclear energy, electronics and motor vehicle industries, as well as with several large banks. The school also co-manages the university’s Centre of Enterprise and Innovation (CEI) which helps academic researchers develop commercial products based on their research. In recent years the school has set up the Institute for Entrepreneurship.

In keeping with their tradition of operating from architecturally notable buildings, Lloyd’s plan to erect a new flagship office in Southampton. This will be built on the Boldrewood campus which currently houses the University of Southampton’s School of Biological Sciences.

History

The University of Southampton has its origin as the Hartley Institution which was formed in 1862 from a benefaction by Henry Robertson Hartley (1777-1850). Hartley was the son of a local wine merchant, and his ambition was to set up a harem Mann, John Edgar & Ashton, Peter (1998). Highfield, A Village Remembered. Halsgrove. ISBN 1-874448-91-4.. On his death he left £103,000 to the Southampton Corporation on condition that it was invested in such manner as might best promote the study and advancement of the sciences of Natural History, Astronomy, Antiquities, Classical and Oriental Literature in the town, such as by forming a Public Library, Botanic Gardens, Observatory, and collections of objects with the above sciences.

The city officials housed Hartley's books in a building in Southampton's High Street, in the city centre. The Hartley Institution was borne out of this, and became a university college in 1902. In 1919 it was renamed Hartley University College, and subsequently University College Southampton. Before 1952, the college's degrees were awarded by the University of London.

Having outgrown the High Street premises, the college was set to move to greenfield land near Highfield's Back Lane (now University Road). Although the new main building was formally opened on 20th June 1914, the outbreak of the First World War occurred before any lectures could take place there. The buildings were handed over by the college authorities for use as a military hospital. In order to cope with the volume of casualties, wooden huts were erected at the rear of the building. The college continued to use these after the war, eventually replacing the makeshift extension with brick buildings. With the continuing expansion, an academic bookshop was built on the site of Church Farm and the Students' Union complex and refectory were built on the site of Sir Sidney Kimber's brickyard.

In 1952, the Queen granted the University of Southampton a Royal Charter to award degrees in its own right. This conferred full university status and made Southampton independent of the University of London. Despite being one of the last of the "civic" universities, it grew rapidly and gained a reputation for a strong academic approach. It expanded rapidly during the 1960s, when a number of new "plate glass" universities were springing up; such as the University of Warwick, University of York, University of East Anglia and a number of others.

In 2005, a large fire destroyed part of the Mountbatten Building, holding optical fibre research laboratories (the world-renowned Optoelectronics Research Centre, ORC) and the microchip fabrication laboratories. It is estimated that the costs for rebuilding the centre and replacing the equipment will be around £70 million.*

Architecture

The earliest buildings on the main (Highfield) campus date back to the 1910s; however, the centre of the campus is dominated by two imposing 1930s buildings by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott - literally in red brick - while the original 1950s masterplan and the majority of the remaining buildings are by Sir Basil Spence in a light, Mies van der Rohe style. A new masterplan for the Highfield campus was drawn up in 1998 by renowned architect Rick Mather who has also contributed some of the newer buildings. The campus has expanded rapidly over the last decade, with many notable new buildings including one designed by Norman Foster. The campus retains an area of parkland in which are scattered 20th century sculptures by Barbara Hepworth, FE McWilliams, Justin Knowles, Nick Pope and John Edwards.

Students' Union

The University of Southampton Students' Union (SUSU), is sited in two buildings opposite the Hartley Library. One, the West Building, dates back to the 1940s in a red brick style, complementing the Hartley Library opposite; the main building was built in the 1960s in the Basil Spence masterplan. This was extended with new nightclub and cinema facilities in 2002. In May 2002 (after several attempts going back several years), it chose to disaffiliate itself from the NUS, whom SUSU believed to be 'political time-wasters' and 'bureaucratic'. The multiple award winning student radio station, Surge, broadcasts from new studios in the main Union building. Surge broadcasts throughout the year on the 1287AM and the internet and once a year on FM. The student newspaper, originally Wessex News, is now published once every three weeks as Wessex Scene following a name change in 1996. Events are held in The Cube, the Union's nightclub, and in the Stag's Head, the Union bar. National touring bands play in the Garden Court in the West Building.

Famous alumni

Motto

Strenuis Ardua Cedunt (The Heights Yield to Endeavour)

Corporate slogan

At the Cutting Edge of Innovation

See also

External links

News articles

References

Education in Hampshire | Universities in England | Nursing schools in the United Kingdom | Southampton

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "University of Southampton".

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