Lancaster University Celebrates 60 Years of Excellence: A True Diamond in Education

From the swinging 60s to the forefront of cyber – Lancaster University clocks up 60 glorious years this month.

From its birth in 1964 to its place today as a pioneer of global research and gold-standard teaching, Lancaster University has powered through the decades.

And, with each new decade of expansion and progress, the University has built and maintained a reputation as a proudly Northern university with a strong global footprint and sustainable ethos.

It was back in 1947 that the idea for a university in the city was first mooted, but things only really started to take shape with the creation of the Robbins Commission to look at expansion of the UK’s university sector in 1961.

Lancashire County Council duly threw its hat into the ring, with several locations, including a site in Blackpool, considered before Bailrigg was chosen as the home for the new university.

The founding Vice-Chancellor, Charles Carter, came into post on 1 April 1963, and the University accepted its first 330 students in October 1964 with only 13 professors, 32 additional members of teaching and research staff, 8 library staff and 14 administrators.

While the impressive new campus took shape on a 300-acre site some four kilometres south of the city centre, the first cohorts of students were taught in temporary facilities in St Leonard’s Gate, close to the heart of Lancaster. It was not until 1967 that operations moved to the University’s present location.

This campus-based university is set right in the heart of a region that boasts an historic and bustling city, an impressive coastal Bay and rolling green countryside.

Its founding subjects were in the natural sciences, business subjects, and the humanities, including an emphasis on modern languages, while the second generation of subjects focused particularly on social sciences and technology.

Fast forward through six transformative decades and Lancaster University in 2024 is home to four faculties housing a full spectrum of academic departments and research centres, with more than 16,000 students and close to 4000 members of staff.

Widely acknowledged as a top 15 UK university, with a gold rating from the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF), Lancaster now has campuses around the globe.

Viewed as a regional leader, its economic impact continues to drive innovation and success in the North West, through a wide variety of partnerships with business, health and governmental organisations.

This growing impact is recognised through Lancaster’s strong performance in the latest national Knowledge Exchange Framework (KEF) assessment, an annual evaluation by Research England that measures how universities engage with external partners to drive economic, environmental, and societal growth.

Lancaster’s commitment to sustainability prompted the announcement last November of a major new investment for the creation of a new ‘Low Carbon Energy Centre’ to further decarbonise its campus and help towards its goal of net zero by 2035. It is also reflected in the University’s Top-100 position in global rankings for sustainability in the higher education sector, with the latest QS World University Rankings, released in December 2023, placing Lancaster joint first for sustainability governance.

Internationally, Lancaster’s 60th year marks the launch of its international branch campus in Bandung, West Java, in collaboration with Deakin University – adding to its growing status as a teaching partner with Beijing Jiaotong University, China; Lancaster University Ghana; Lancaster University Leipzig, Germany; and Sunway University, Malaysia, the latter partnership catering for more than 7,000 students.

The University remains a key partner and leader in a number of areas, including cyber security. In the latter area, Lancaster continues to build on its £19m investment to enhance its research on cyber threats, an increasingly critical aspect of any business or organisation. It has grown its capability to around 55 cyber-focused academics across a range of critical disciplines and is creating new cutting-edge research and educational facilities while developing successful and vibrant connections with business, public policy makers and external partners through a cadre of Professors in Practice.

The most recent assessment by the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), a part of GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters), and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, reaffirmed recognition of Lancaster University as an ‘Academic Centre of Excellence for Cyber Security Research’ (ACE-CSR). Lancaster is one of only a handful of universities in the UK whose education, research and training is recognised by the NCSC.

Alongside its work in cyber, the University is also addressing other areas of high-tech advance, including the lead on a new, £9 million globally significant research hub to transform the way we develop and use artificial intelligence (AI) tools, bringing together leading researchers from mathematics, statistics and computational AI.

Over the years, Honorary Degrees have been awarded to people regionally, nationally and internationally marking success and achievements in all walks of life, including the local community, academics, pioneers, politicians, and sports personalities. There are many famous names among this long and growing list, which, in its earliest days, included the then Prime Minister Harold Wilson. More recent awardees have included leading alumni, like actor and director Andy Serkis and TV presenters Ranvir Singh and James May, to name but a few.

Celebrations to mark Lancaster’s 60th anniversary have included a series of in-conversation events with alumnus, Barry Lucas, who was appointed the University’s first social manager in 1971, and led a dedicated team in transforming Lancaster into one of the top gig venues in northern England. Between 1970 and 1984 the University played host to some of the biggest names in rock and pop, including Paul McCartney, The Who, Queen, Pink Floyd, Joy Division and Tina Turner… among many others.

At the heart of Lancaster’s history are the University’s global community of more than 175,000 alumni, spread across more than 180 countries. Many of them returned to Bailrigg in September for the annual alumni reunion weekend, with some travelling from as far afield as Australia, Hong Kong and the United States. Remarkably this included 30 members of the original cohort who studied at Lancaster in those early days. Together they toasted a remarkable six-decade story of success and the future with the hope of even greater things to come in the next 60 years.

Vice-Chancellor of Lancaster University Professor Andy Schofield said: “Lancaster University has had a remarkable 60 years; the impact of our University is felt beyond the city and across the globe. Our research and education changes lives, creating opportunity and delivering excellence. With every graduation ceremony, and every new academic year, our community grows.

“In this, our anniversary year, we’re proud to be consistently recognised as one of the best universities in the UK as well as the best university in the North West and remain just as ambitious for our future as those who founded our university in 1964 with such determination and vision.”