Lancaster has climbed to 9th position in The Times and The Sunday Times Good University Guide 2017, to achieve its elite target of top ten positions in all the UK’s major university league tables. Lancaster also ranks 9th in the Complete University Guide and 8th in the Guardian.
Lancaster maintains its title of top university in the northwest (over Russell Group peers Manchester and Liverpool) which it has held for more than a decade.
Many subjects at Lancaster are ranked in the top ten, with two - Social Work and Drama, Dance and Cinematics ranked 1st and French, German and Accounting and Finance ranked 2nd.
Other subjects in the top ten include: Religious Studies and Communication and Media Studies 4th; Politics, Business Studies, Linguistics and Politics are 5th; Creative Writing, Mechanical Engineering and Philosophy 6th, Art and Design and Geography and Environmental Science 7th; Physics joint 8th; Maths 9th and Medicine 10th.
Authors of The Times and The Sunday Times GUG cited a significant improvement in Lancaster's ranking for student satisfaction with their wider university experience to rank 12th in the UK and said:
“The University of Lancaster is committed to becoming a "global player" in both teaching and research, with a place among the top 100 universities in the world.
“Lancaster has jumped nearly 40 places in the QS global ranking and is the only UK university with a presence in sub-Saharan Africa, having opened a branch campus in Ghana. There are also partnerships with universities in India, Malaysia and China that mean as many students are taking a Lancaster degree overseas as in the UK.
“The university’s research grades improved substantially in the latest assessments, when 83% of its work was considered world-leading or internationally excellent. There were particularly good results in business and management, sociology, English and maths and statistics, and a strong performance across the board. Lancaster was the only university in the region to receive an increase in funding because of the quality and volume of its submission.”
This year has also seen the strongest overall result Lancaster has ever had in research grant funding successes.
The Times and The Sunday Times Good University Guide 2017 provides the most comprehensive overview of higher education in Britain. It includes an analysis of student satisfaction with the quality of the teaching at each institution. A fully searchable website with full university profiles and 67 subject tables will be published for subscribers to The Times and The Sunday Times.