University of Essex

The University of Essex is a public research university in Essex, England. Established by royal charter in 1965, it is one of the original plate glass universities. The university comprises three campuses in the county, in Southend-on-Sea and Loughton with its primary campus in Wivenhoe Park, Colchester.

Essex has a largely diverse student community and holds partnerships with more than 100 global higher education institutions. It was named University of the Year at the Times Higher Education Awards in 2018. Essex's Department of Government received Regius Professorship conferred by Queen Elizabeth II in 2013 and the university was awarded the Queen's Anniversary Prize on two occasions for advancing human rights in 2009 and social and economic research in 2017.

In the 2027 rankings of British universities, Essex is ranked 30th in the Complete University Guide, 23rd in The Guardian University Guide and 47th by The Sunday Times. It has produced alumni in several fields across the world; these include Nobel Prize laureates, a head of state, and senior governors and politicians.

History

Foundation

The University of Essex is one of the seven original plate glass universities established between 1961 and 1965. The university shield consists of the ancient arms attributed to the Kingdom of Essex and the motto: "Thought the harder, heart the keener" is adapted from the Anglo-Saxon poem The Battle of Maldon.

In July 1959, Essex County Council accepted a proposal from Charles Leatherland, Baron Leatherland to establish a university in the county. A University Promotion Committee was formed, chaired by Lord Lieutenant of Essex, Sir John Ruggles-Brise, which submitted a formal application to the University Grants Committee requesting for the establishment of the University of Essex. Initial reports suggested that the Promotion Committee recommended Hylands Park in Chelmsford as the primary site, however, in May 1961 an announcement in the House of Commons preferred the foundation of the university within Wivenhoe and in December, Wivenhoe Park was acquired for the new university. In July 1962, R. A. Butler was appointed as chancellor, Albert Sloman as vice-chancellor, with Anthony Rowland-Joins as registrar.

The first Professors were appointed in May 1963: Alan Gibson in Physics, Ian Proudman in Mathematics, John Bradley in Chemistry, Richard Lipsey in Economics, Peter Townsend in Sociology, Donald Davie in Literature, and Jean Blondel in Government. Whilst undergoing clearing for construction work, an Appeal Fund was deployed upon a development plan and within six months it exceeded its £1million target with The Queen Mother and Sir Winston Churchill among contributors. In Autumn 1963, red was preferred as the university colour, the first prospectus was prepared and work began on the first permanent buildings. In January 1964, the university's academic robes were designed by Sir Hardy Amies, a Royal Warrant holder as designer to the Queen, and in March Sir John Ruggles-Brise was appointed the first Pro-Chancellor and Charles Leatherland, Baron Leatherland the first Treasurer of the university. Two months after, the university's Armorial Bearings were published with the motto "Thought the harder, heart the keener".

Expansion

In October 1964, the first 122 students arrived with 28 teaching staff in three schools: Comparative Studies, Physical Sciences and Social Studies. Departments of Chemistry, Physics, Government, Sociology, Literature, Mathematics and Economics opened along with the Language Centre (later the Department of Language and Linguistics) and the Computing Centre (later the Department of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering) with Denis Mesure elected as the first President of the Student Council. Work started on the first residential tower, Rayleigh, with The Queen approving the grant of Charter to take effect from 11 January 1965 in December.

Colchester campus and architecture

Wivenhoe Park, the home of the primary campus, was painted by landscape painter John Constable in 1816. The park houses the main 1960s buildings along with Wivenhoe House, an 18th-century mansion that also features in Constable's painting. Wivenhoe House hotel was closed in December 2010 for major refurbishment and reopened in 2012 as a combined four-star country house hotel and hotel school. The Edge Hotel School was originally a partnership between the university and the Edge Foundation and is now a department of the university. It is the UK's first working hotel school dedicated to the development of future leaders of the hotel, events and hospitality industry.

With its concrete architecture, the university is typical of England's 1960s universities and was heavily influenced by the international Brutalist architecture movement. Due to its particular form of architecture involving the use of prefabricated concrete and glass, the university is also referred to as a plateglass university.

The architect of the campus, Kenneth Capon of the Architects' Co-Partnership, took the Tuscan town of San Gimignano with its squares and towers as an inspiration (the university has six residential towers mainly for undergraduates, but the original plan was to build 29).

The landmark buildings include the residential towers, The Hexagon and the Albert Sloman library – which was selected as an 'icon of British design' by the Victoria and Albert Museum in its 2012 exhibition British Design 1948–2012. The library has one of the few still operating continuous-loop paternoster lifts in the country.

An exhibition called "Something Fierce" was created in The Hexagon to celebrate the university's 50th anniversary in 2014, reflecting on the university's founding vision and its relationship with its architecture. The exhibition was curated by art historian Jules Lubbock and director of the university's Art Exchange gallery. The university's original buildings were also featured in the Futures Found exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts in 2017 which reflected on post-war architecture in the UK.

The Silberrad Student Centre and extension of the Albert Sloman Library completed in 2015 were designed to reflect the Brutalist architecture of the original campus buildings. The project was named RIBA Regional Building of the Year Award in 2016.

Essex Business School also opened in 2015 and won the Design through Innovation category at the RICS Awards 2016 for the East of England.

Organisation

The university is organised into three faculties, comprising 21 schools and departments, spanning the Humanities, Social Sciences and Science and Health.

Flagship institutes

Essex has three flagship institutes which bring together academics from across disciplines and departments to deliver research in a specialist area. These are the Human Rights Centre, the Institute for Analytics and Data Science and the Institute for Social and Economic Research.

Human Rights Centre

The Human Rights Centre at Essex was established in 1982. One of the first academic centres of its kind in the world, the work of the Human Rights Centre led to the university receiving a Queen's Anniversary Prize in 2010 for its work to promote human rights internationally.

Institute for Analytics and Data Science

The Institute for Analytics and Data Science (IADS) works with businesses and local, regional and national authorities on management and transfer of big data; methodological and analytical methods for different types of applications from financial and business to biomedical; and socio-economic aspects of data; and ethical, legal and human rights aspects of data.

Institute for Social and Economic Research

The Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER) is a research centre for the analysis of panel data in Economics and Sociology. It opened in 1989 as the ESRC Research Centre on Micro-Social Change in Britain and now houses the ESRC-funded Understanding Society project, a longitudinal study of the socio-economic circumstances and attitudes of 100,000 individuals in 40,000 British households. ISER's work led to Essex receiving the Queen's Anniversary Prize for Higher and Further Education in 2017.

Institute of Public Health and Wellbeing

The Institute of Public Health and Wellbeing (IPHW) is a multidisciplinary international research centre partnering with national (NHS Trust, Public Health England, British Heart Foundation) and international (WHO, WHF) organisations for tackling public health issues and improving health and wellbeing by means of innovations.

Essex Law School

The Essex School of Law is ranked 19th in the UK, 72nd in the world and 3rd in the UK by research power through THE World University Rankings (2022).

Department of Economics

The Essex Department of Economics is one of the founding departments of the university. It consistently ranks among the top economics departments in the UK for research: 4th in REF 2021 on research power and 3rd in REF 2008 on GPA. Two later economics Nobel prize winners have either studied or taught at the department: Christopher Pissarides (laureate 2010) obtained undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in economics, whereas Oliver Hart (laureate 2016) was a lecturer at the economics department.

Partnerships

The university has stated its priority to enhance new and existing partnerships and initiatives at international and domestic level.

A recent development includes the establishment of the first "European university" through the Young Universities for the Future of Europe (YUFE), an alliance of eight leading young European universities and six associate partners of higher education, non-governmental and private sector, selected by the European Commission. Essex is a member of the Young European Research Universities Network (YERUN) which promotes timely and relevant research collaboration across significant areas with special attention towards future educational strategies and policies. Additionally, the YERUN promotes student and staff mobility over 18 universities and 12 EU countries.

The university has a growing number of international academic partnerships offering a range of dual degrees, double degrees, honours, masters and doctoral programmes with universities in China, France, Germany, Japan, Russia and Singapore. Essex also has link, friendship and progression arrangements with more than 100 higher education institutions around the world.

Essex's School of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering and Northwest University in China launched a double degree programme in 2017 that was approved by the Chinese Ministry of Education. As a prestigious joint four-year programme, students will complete the first three years in China, with Essex staff travelling to Xi'an to deliver month-long modules followed by online support from the UK, to completing the final year in the UK. After completing the final year in the UK, students are awarded qualifications from both institutions; a BSc in Electronic Systems Engineering from Essex and a BSc in Electronic Information Science and Technology.

Essex also has growing links with a range of Chinese universities including Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, Sichuan International Studies University in Chongqing and Guangdong University of Foreign Studies.

Since 2014, Essex has offered a range of degree courses in partnership with Kaplan Singapore. The partnership between Kaplan and Essex now extends to various full-time and part-time programmes in partnership with Essex Business School, Edge Hotel School and soon, the Department of Psychology and the School of Sports, Rehabilitation and Exercise Sciences.

Other partnerships include an international dual-degree programme offered in collaboration between the Faculty of Political Science at Chulalongkorn University in Thailand and the Department of Government at Essex; a dual-degree partnership with National Dong Hwa University College of Humanities and Social Sciences in Taiwan; validation arrangements with Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts in Singapore; a Masters course in Entrepreneurship and Innovation led by Essex and HKU Space in Hong Kong; and pathways to courses in Essex Business School and Essex Law School from Brickfields Asia College in Malaysia.

Reputation

The University of Essex was named University of the Year at the Times Higher Education Awards in 2018. It won the International Collaboration of the Year Award at the Times Higher Education Awards 2019 for its work with Amnesty International and five other universities on the Digital Verification Corps, which investigates human rights violations around the world.

On two occasions Essex has been awarded the Queen's Anniversary Prize for Higher and Further Education, in 2009 for its "advancing the legal and broader practice of international human rights," and in 2017 for its "authoritative social and economic research to inform the policies of governments for the improvement of people's lives."

For many years Essex was among the smallest multi-faculty universities in Britain but its strategic plan 2013–19 set a target of expanding by around 50% to around 15,000 students.

It was a member of the 1994 Group. It is now a member of the Young European Research Universities Network (YERUN) and Young Universities for the Future of Europe (YUFE) alliance.

Essex has developed an international reputation for teaching and research. The annual Summer School in Social Science Data Analysis and Collection, celebrated its 50th year in 2017, more than 15,000 faculty and students from all over the world have completed courses through the Summer School over the past five decades.

The University of Essex was rated in the top 20 in the UK in the Research Excellence Framework (REF 2014) and has been in the top 15 for overall student satisfaction six years running, amongst mainstream English universities, according to the National Student Survey (NSS, 2018).

Essex's alumni include two Nobel laureates, making the university one of only three non-Russell Group universities which have a Nobel laureate alumnus, alongside the University of Greenwich and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. The 1987 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Óscar Arias, who completed his doctorate in political science in 1973. The 2010 Nobel Prize for Economics was awarded to Christopher Pissarides who gained his BA and MA degrees in economics in the early 1970s. In 2016 former Essex academic Oliver Hart won the Nobel Prize for Economics. Derek Walcott, who received the 1992 Nobel Prize in Literature, served as Professor of Poetry at the university from 2010 to 2013 before his retirement.

Rankings

Essex was rated Gold in the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) in 2017. The TEF Panel noted students from all backgrounds achieved outstanding outcomes with regards to continuation and progression to highly skilled employment or further study and outstanding levels of satisfaction with teaching, academic support, and assessment and feedback. In the 2023 TEF assessment, Essex's award was revised to "Silver".

Student life

Student body

New students entering the university in 2021 had an average of 126 points (the equivalent of just under ABB at A Level). Statistics from the Higher Education Statistics Agency show 95% of UK undergraduates are from state schools or colleges and 11.8% are from low participation neighbourhoods.

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