It’s just been announced that Britain’s newest academic centre for learning, the University of Cumbria, has secured £26m over the next eight years, bringing hundreds of new jobs to the region.
The UoC has campuses and sites in Ambleside and Lancaster (formerly St. Martins College) and elsewhere.
The funding, confirmed by the Northwest Regional Development Agency (NWDA), is intended to transform the Cumbrian economy by encouraging graduate retention and helping people move to higher value employment over the next eight years – so the region can emerge from the global downturn stronger than ever before.
This continued development of Cumbria University is instrumental to driving the progression from Further Education to Higher Education in the region to 2017.
Some of the Univeristy’s current funding has helped see completion of the St. Martins site’s new Gateway building (pictured above), which has now been opened. The £9.2m building will include a ‘one stop shop’ for all student facing services where all questions, queries and concerns from students can be received and dealt with.
The £26.7m of NWDA funding follows £9.3m announced by the Agency in July 2007 ahead of the University of Cumbria’s official launch on 1 August 2007. This first phase of funding was aimed specifically at the development costs surrounding the creation of the University and ensuring it was ready to open on the first day of the 2007/08 term.
“I very much welcome this further investment for the development of the University of Cumbria,” commented Prime Minister Gordon Brown on a visit to the region. “It’s a vital project that will help the region attract new jobs in the future so Cumbria can emerge from the global downturn stronger than ever before.
“It directly creates 530 new jobs over eight years and will support the creation of 340 new businesses and help the University to increase the number of students by 28,000 by 2017, vital for further unlocking the talent of this region. Our Higher education system continues to be internationally renowned; developing the University of Cumbria enhances this reputation.
“We need to continue to develop and keep young talent in this region,” Brown urged. “It’s critical to boosting the not only the regional economy but for the UK as a whole.”
• For more information about the University of Cumbria, please visit the website at www.cumbria.ac.uk or call 08080 024 024.
Unfortunatly this post is a little onesided as University of Cumbria has secured this money as it is running up massive debts-any incoming money is being used to cover the black hole in the University budget.
The University generally has a bad standing in the local community, with attendance set to decrease over the next ten years.With a bad reputation, limited income and bad staff morale, it is likely that UOC will be dead in the water by 2012.
Here at virtual-lancaster we’re not aware of any “bad standing” the University of Cumbria is supposed to have in the local community and we would be interested to see if any evidence can be presented to support this.
As regards “massive debts”, The Times Higher Education Supplement reported in February that Cumbria’s business plan, which was approved in 2007, set out plans to cut staff costs from 69 per cent of total income to 63 per cent by 2010-11. Since then, university vice-chancellor Professor Christopher Carr said, "the world in which we have to operate has changed dramatically".
The university's trading deficit was £5.5 million in 2007-08, much higher than the £4 million originally predicted, he said. The credit crunch and last year's 8 per cent pay rise for academics had compounded problems arising from lower than projected student numbers in 2008, he added.
While no-one welcomes the cuts, the News & Star reported on 23 february that Unions hoped that some predicted 80 jobs losses at the University of Cumbria can be met without the need for compulsory redundancies.
Unison and the University and College Union have praised university bosses for the way they have kept staff informed of plans for a restructure following its creation in August 2007.
This, and the rest of the Star’s report, would seem to be at odds with claims of “bad standing”.