The University

The University of Leicester is one of the UK’s leading research and teaching universities. The University was founded as a University College in 1921 and granted a Royal Charter in 1957. It has an estate of approximately 232 acres that includes a fifteen-acre Botanic Garden, an arboretum and a range of residences in the suburbs that are set in attractive gardens.

The University has 19,000 students including 8,860 at postgraduate level. There are 34 academic departments located in five faculties: Arts, Law, Medicine and Biological Sciences, Science and Social Sciences. There is a University-wide Graduate School and an Institute of Lifelong Learning. The University employs approximately 3,500 staff.

Leicester is a leading University rated highly for its research and teaching. The University had 25 ratings of 5*, 5 or 4 in the 2001 Research Assessment Exercise when 84% of the staff were in units of assessment of national and international excellence. The University has been awarded the Queen’s Anniversary Prize in Higher and Further Education in 2002 for its work in Genetics. In this year's National Student Survey, organised by the funding councils the University was ranked 1st for teaching quality, academic support, personal development and overall satisfaction amongst universities teaching full-time students. Our student completion rate is in the top 10 nationally. Leicester is home to two Centres of Excellence in Teaching and Learning and plays an important part in a third.

Leicester was one of 4 institutions short listed for the award of Higher Education Institution of the Year, organised by The Times Higher Education Supplement. The award aims to recognise and celebrate the achievements of universities and the academics who work with them and the THES was in particular looking for HEIs which had been “imaginative and innovative” in their initiatives.

The University is committed to producing research and teaching of the highest quality, to promoting undergraduate and postgraduate studies through campus-based and distance-learning programmes and to developing close collaboration with the local and regional community.

School of Medicine

Dean: Professor Ian Lauder, MB BS, FRCPath, FMedSci

As part of the School of Medicine’s commitment to the maintaining and improving on its existing high standards of research and teaching, it carried out an extensive restructuring process in 2003. There are five substantial academic departments, defined primarily by their research interests and spanning the traditional clinical subject areas. These are Cancer Studies and Molecular Medicine (Head: Professor W P Steward); Cardiovascular Sciences (Head: Professor N J Samani); Health Sciences (Head: Professor R H Baker); Infection, Immunity and Inflammation (Head: Professor P W Andrew); and Medical and Social Care Education (Head: Professor S Petersen).

These Departments are able to bring considerable intellectual resources to bear on a range of vital medical challenges and reflect the priorities of the National Health Service. They provide a stimulating environment for research and for study at all levels, and offer a wide range of opportunities for professional training and development.

In addition to the departments there are clinical divisions, which bring together clinical academics from cognate specialties, and whose role is to co-ordinate links with NHS colleagues, the Royal Colleges and postgraduate medical education. There are clinical divisions for Anaesthesia, Critical Care and Pain Management; Child Health; Epidemiology and Public Health; General Practice and Primary Health Care; Medical Physics and Radiology; Medicine; Obstetrics and Gynaecology; Oncology; Pathology; Psychiatry; and Surgery, Orthopaedic Surgery and Ophthalmology.