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 September 2025), 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.
A formal process to appoint a contractor is expected to be completed in spring 2025.
Once a contractor is appointed, it is anticipated that construction will pave the way for the first phase of the Citadels campus to be ready to welcome students from 2027.
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.
With Imperial College London, we are opening a new graduate-entry medical school in Carlisle.
The Pears Cumbria School of Medicine, which welcomes its first students in August 2025, will train new doctors for Cumbria and northwest England to transform healthcare in local communities.
And we are building a campus in Barrow-in-Furness, that is due to open in September 2025. The campus is creating new opportunities and breaking down barriers to address the skills need of county and region and align with the significant role that the town has in the UK’s infrastructure.
Shaping the future of Barrow, the new campus will support the town’s shared endeavours for its economic, skills, cultural and social future development. Collectively, this will expand people’s understanding of Barrow’s vital role in the UK’s future plans for growth, energy, security, and public services.
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 to do social, cultural and economic and social good.
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 are an integral part of what we do at the University of Cumbria.
Our university is recognised for having high engagement in local growth and regeneration and development income in 2023.
Our knowledge exchange programmes utilise our academic expertise for real world benefit. 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 the number one university in the North West and in the top 10 in the UK for graduates into employment or further study within 15 months of completion. We have 75,000 alumni worldwide making an impact locally, nationally and internationally.
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.
We’ve also been awarded Silver overall in the Teaching Excellence Framework 2023, which assesses the quality of teaching and student outcomes.
We are also one of the country’s largest providers of degree apprenticeships and ranked among the top 50 across the UK.
We have more than 2,300 learners on these programmes, working in partnership with more than 330 employers.
We are proud that our apprenticeship provision is rated Good by Ofsted, as is our Initial Teacher Education provision.
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.
The Pears Cumbria School of Medicine developed 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 and health trusts across the region to develop a curriculum which is 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.
We work with seven of England’s ambulance trusts to deliver apprenticeships that enable existing employees to upskill and reskill to become qualified frontline paramedics.
Through a working partnership with three other universities, we are also delivering the Police Constable Degree Apprenticeship to several police forces in South East England.
The Police Education Consortium (PEC) – made up of the Universities of Cumbria, Canterbury Christ Church, Middlesex, and Portsmouth – provides Police Constable Degree Apprenticeships and other programmes to new police recruits joining Surrey, Sussex, and Hampshire Constabularies, and most recently Thames Valley Police.
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. It now has over 1,100 live learners, with 888 completers who have a Qualification Achievement Rate of 91%. More than three quarters of these learners have achieved a 2:1 or first class degree and 94 per cent are still employed by the employer who supported them through the programme.
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 [email protected]
