Ranked 8^th in the UK, our latest ranking highlights the Department’s high standards of teaching, research, student experience and graduate prospects. The result follows a series of achievements: The Guardian ranked us 2^nd in the UK in 2014 and 2016 and 1^st for career prospects in 2017, while the National Student Survey placed us first for overall student satisfaction in three of the past six years. In the most recent Research Excellence Framework (REF2014), 28% of our publications were classified as world-leading, 2^nd in the UK only behind Oxford. These achievements reinforce our status as one of the UK’s leading physics departments.

Overall as an institution, Lancaster University ranks top 10 in all three major university league tables: Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide, Guardian University Guide and Complete University Guide. Amongst other Science and Technology subjects in the Good University Guide 2017, Mechanical Engineering now ranks 6^th, Geography and Environmental Science ranks 7^th and Mathematics ranks 9^th, while Computing and Communications occupies the top place for graduate prospects in Computer Science, all underlining Lancaster’s reputation as a Top 10 University.

The Good University Guide league table is based on ten measures: student satisfaction, research quality, research intensity, entry standards, student: staff ratio, spending on academic services, spending on student facilities, good honours degrees achieved, graduate prospects and completion.

With a reputation for high quality teaching driven by outstanding research, the Physics Department provides engaging and varied degrees with excellent academic support, exciting advanced modules and projects, an open-door policy and a favourable staff-to-student ratio, and this is reflected in the excellent scores obtained in all of the major league tables this year.