This year’s NSS results feature Chemistry at Lancaster for the first time and we have received a fantastic score of 96% for overall student satisfaction. Chemistry scored 100% in many categories, including: staff explanations; opportunities to apply learning; contact with staff; opportunity to work with others; and the opportunity for students to provide feedback on the course.

Professor Peter Fielden, Head of Department, commented: “Naturally, I am absolutely delighted with our first ever excellent NSS result! But the accolade must go to the hard work of all the Chemistry staff, whose dedication to teaching excellence and the student experience is exemplary. I sincerely hope this will send a very positive message to future applicants who wish to study chemistry in a brilliant department at a top-flight University!”

The Faculty of Science and Technology as a whole has a score of 91.8% for overall student satisfaction.

Dr Alan Collins, Associate Dean for Undergraduate Teaching said: “These excellent results are testimony to the hard work that all of our departments put into the students’ education. We place a great deal of importance on student satisfaction and it’s rewarding to see this reflected in their feedback.”

Top 5 in the UK

The University has ranked in the top five in the UK, coming in 4th (excluding FE colleges and small or specialist providers) with an overall score of 91%.

Professor Mark E Smith, the Vice-Chancellor of Lancaster, said: “Staff at Lancaster University put a huge amount of effort into providing a high quality learning experience for our students. They do this in partnership with our students and I would like to congratulate everyone on another very strong result for Lancaster. We take the NSS very seriously because it gives us important feedback about how to further improve the quality of our teaching. Although we are regularly amongst the top 10 for overall satisfaction that doesn't mean that we are complacent or cannot do better.”

More than 300,000 final year students at more than 500 universities and colleges took part in the annual survey, which records in detail how students feel about their learning experience.

They are asked questions about the quality of their teaching, learning opportunities, assessment and feedback, academic support, the organisation and management of their course, the quality of learning resources, whether they feel part of a learning community, whether they are listened to and the strength of the student union.

Lancaster is also ranked among the top 10 universities in the UK, in all three major league tables (Complete University Guide, the Guardian and the Times and Sunday Times) and was awarded a Gold in the recent national Teaching Excellence Framework assessments.