The University of Cumbria’s vision is to transform lives and livelihoods through learning, applied research and practice – for now and for our future generations.
We were established in Cumbria for a reason, and this drives us: to increase higher education participation in our county, to address higher-level skills and sector needs and most importantly to positively impact on the lives and livelihoods of individuals across our communities.
Importantly, we are also a university for our region and wider communities.
Our campuses in Carlisle, Ambleside, Barrow (from 2024), Lancaster and London, and our presence on the west coast of Cumbria, provide us with the physical environment, digital infrastructure and geographical reach to deliver our strategic aims.
We are investing and are being invested in. In August 2022 we received planning approval for our new Citadels campus development in Carlisle.
Scheduled to open in 2026, with £55 million funding secured through the Borderlands Inclusive Growth Deal and Carlisle’s Town Deal, the £78m development of the new campus on the Citadels site is a transformative project.
We are working with Imperial College London to establish a new graduate-entry medical school here in Carlisle.
The Cumbria School of Medicine, which plans to enrol its first students in autumn 2025, will train new doctors for Cumbria and northwest England to transform healthcare in local communities.
And in March this year we received full planning permission to develop our new university campus in Barrow. The University of Cumbria campus is central to the creation of the Barrow Learning Quarter and will transform access to further and higher education and opportunities for those in the town and surrounding areas, now and in the future.
As a modern university, based in the real world, we prepare our graduates not only for work, but also for life. Central to this is the promotion of an environment that encourages our students to use their skills, talent and intellect in delivering social, cultural and economic and social benefit.
The world around us continues to be a challenging place and our purpose is more important than ever, and as we look forward, we will continue to transform lives and livelihoods through learning, applied research and practice – for now and for our future generations.
Our research, knowledge exchange and teaching
Our teaching is led by practice, industry and research-informed academics.
We offer flexible learning, work experience and a safe space for critical challenge and experimentation. And through our academic institutes, centres and networks, research and knowledge exchange is an integral part of what we do at the University of Cumbria.
Our Centre for Research in Health and Society (CRiHS) and our Health and Society Knowledge Exchange (HASKE) both continue to contribute to important research tackling health inequalities across our regions.
Our Centre for National Parks & Protected Areas (CNPPA) was a founding signatory to the Protected and Conserved Areas Joint Statement (PCAJS) at COP26 in Glasgow.
This is a global statement signed by a number of international national park organisations, government departments, and the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s World Commission for Protected Areas (IUCN-WCPA).
Our Learning, Education and Development (LED) research centre within our Institute of Education hosts the Teacher Education Advancement Network (TEAN) which is a professional, global learning community with more than 900 international teacher educators as active members.
Our knowledge exchange programmes utilise our academic expertise for real world benefit and as we look to the future, we are committed to growing the quality of research conducted by our staff by continuing to actively participate in the ‘Research Excellence Framework’ (REF).
This is the system for assessing the quality of research in UK higher education institutions and our research in allied health, social sciences, geography and environment, business, art and design and education.
As part of the latest REF2021, 42% of our research has been independently rated as ‘internationally excellent’ or ‘world leading’, including 7.7% rated in the highest category of 4* and 54% of our overall research impact has been independently rated as ‘internationally excellent’ or ‘world leading’.
Our reputation
We are amongst the best in the UK for graduate employment and top in the North West with 96% of our students getting a job or going on to further study within 15 months of graduating.
We’re ranked in the top 41% of universities worldwide overall for our social and economic impact and we’re ranked 50th in the world for Gender Equality according to the 2022 Times Higher Education Impact Rankings.
A recent study also named University of Cumbria as the top university in the North of England for producing alumni company founders and we came 6th overall out of 121 UK universities analysed.
The research by Novuna Business Cash Flow combed data from LinkedIn of nearly 2.8 million alumni who founded companies between 2020 and 2023 from 121 universities across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Towards 2030
As we move towards 2030, our vision is to transform lives and livelihoods through learning, applied research and practice – for now and for our future generations. We are engaged, adaptable and agile in fulfilling our role and we do not, and we should not work alone.
Why would we even try? We have a rich and world-class asset base of people, place, and practice to draw on.
Our focus remains on providing our students with the skills and experience necessary to undertake professional roles with local, national and international employers and the employment prospects for our graduates continue to improve year on year.
We work in and through student, educational, employer, sector and place-based partnerships and collaborations, co-creating approaches, content and solutions which meet our student and stakeholder needs.
Our proposed new medical school in partnership with Imperial College London is one such example of this.
By combining our experience in educating nurses, midwives and allied health professionals with Imperial’s world class medical science, we will be able to offer high quality and research informed education to the medical practitioners of the future.
We have been working with our Imperial colleagues to develop a curriculum which will be distinctively local and designed to drive innovation in medical education and research.
Our apprenticeship portfolio continues to grow and contributing to the national effort to train and have more qualified frontline professionals including police officers, nurses, and paramedics remains a key focus.
Higher-level apprenticeships provide fresh opportunities for the university to engage with and support businesses in providing training in Cumbria, north Lancashire and, where appropriate, nationally in focused, niche areas of activity.
This year, the first cohorts of our Police Constable Degree Apprenticeship and our BSc (Hons) Paramedic Science (Apprenticeship) Degree programmes are graduating here in Carlisle.
Through a working partnership with three other universities, we secured a contract to deliver the Police Constable Degree Apprenticeship.
The Police Education Consortium (PEC) – made up of the Universities of Cumbria, Canterbury Christ Church, Middlesex, and Portsmouth – has been providing Police Constable Degree Apprenticeships and Degree Holder Entry Programmes to new police recruits joining Surrey, Sussex, and Hampshire Constabularies.
The University of Cumbria is the first in the consortium to deliver a fast-track Detective Degree Holder Entry Programme, helping to educate new detectives.
Our BSc (Hons) Paramedic Science (Apprenticeship) Degree was launched in 2020 and since then the university has been delivering to around 600 new recruits across seven of England’s ambulance trusts – including over 260 in London.
In 2022 we also launched a first of its kind, Development Woodland Officer Apprenticeship programme in partnership with the Forestry Commission and the Institute of Chartered Foresters.
We have international reach and impact, our graduates support global, as well as national and local communities, practising in and contributing to over 100 countries across the world.
Find out more
Find out more about our ambitions and see what others have to say about us here: https://www.cumbria.ac.uk/t2030/
Find out more about our employer partnerships and who we work with here: https://www.cumbria.ac.uk/business/
To discover how we can develop your workforce email ibil@cumbria.ac.uk
