University of Liverpool

University of Liverpool
Coat of Arms of the University of Liverpool
Motto	"These days of peace foster learning"
Established	1903 – University of Liverpool[1] 1884 – gained University Status as part of Victoria University[1] 1882 – University College Liverpool[2]
Type	Public
Endowment	£121 million[3]
Chancellor	Sir David King
Vice-Chancellor	Sir Howard Newby
Visitor	The Lord President of the Council ex officio
Students	20,655[4]
Undergraduates	16,805[4]
Postgraduates	3,860[4]
Location	Liverpool, England, UK Coordinates: 53°24′22″N 2°58′01″W / 53.406°N 2.967°W / 53.406; -2.967
Campus	Urban
Affiliations	Russell Group, EUA, N8 Group, NWUA, AACSB
Website	www.liv.ac.uk
Official Logo of the University of Liverpool

The University of Liverpool is a teaching and research university based in the city of Liverpool, England. Founded in 1881 (as a university college), it is also one of the six original "red brick" civic universities. It comprises three faculties organised into 35 departments and schools. The university has an enviable international reputation for innovative research and academic excellence.^[5] It is a founding member of the Russell Group of large research-intensive universities, the N8 Group for research collaboration and The University Management school is AACSB accredited.^[6][7] The university has produced eight Nobel Prize winners and offers more than 230 first degree courses across 103 subjects. It was the world's first university to establish departments in Oceanography, Civic Design, Architecture, and Biochemistry at the Johnston Laboratories.^[8] In 2006 the university became the first in the UK to establish an independent university in China making it the world's first Sino-British university.^[9][10][11] It has an annual turnover of £410 million, including £150 million for research.^[12][13] Graduates of the University are styled with the post-nominal letters Lpool, to indicate the institution.

History [edit]

"Red brick" Victoria Building

The University was established in 1881 as University College Liverpool, admitting its first students in 1882.^[2] In 1884, it became part of the federal Victoria University. In 1894 Oliver Lodge, a professor at the University, made the world's first public radio transmission and two years later took the first surgical X-ray in the United Kingdom.^[14] The Liverpool University Press was founded in 1899, making it the third oldest university press in England. Students in this period were awarded external degrees by the University of London.^[15]

Following a Royal Charter and Act of Parliament in 1903, it became an independent university with the right to confer its own degrees called the University of Liverpool. The next few years saw major developments at the university, including Sir Charles Sherrington's discovery of the synapse and Professor William Blair-Bell's work on chemotherapy in the treatment of cancer. In the 1930s to 1940s Professors Sir James Chadwick and Sir Joseph Rotblat made major contributions to the development of the atomic bomb.^[16] From 1943 – 1966 Allan Downie, Professor of Bacteriology, was involved in the eradication of smallpox.

In 1994 the university was a founding member of the Russell Group, a collaboration of twenty leading research-intensive universities, as well as a founding member of the N8 Group in 2004. In the 21st century physicists, engineers and technicians from the University of Liverpool were involved in the construction of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, working on two of the four detectors in the LHC.^[17]

The University has produced eight Nobel Prize winners, from the fields of science, medicine and peace. The Nobel laureates include the physician Sir Ronald Ross, physicist Professor Charles Barkla, the physiologist Sir Charles Sherrington, physicist Sir James Chadwick, chemist Sir Robert Robinson, physiologist Professor Har Gobind Khorana, physiologist Professor Rodney Porter and physicist Professor Joseph Rotblat. Sir Ronald Ross was also the first British Nobel laureate in 1902.

The term "red brick" was first coined by Liverpool professor Edgar Allison Peers (writing as Bruce Truscot) to describe the red brick built civic universities that were built in the UK, mostly in the latter part of the 19th century; these were characterised by Victorian buildings of red brick, such as Victoria Building, which was historically the administrative heart of the University.

Campus and facilities [edit]

University of Liverpool's Active Learning Lab

The University is mainly based around a single urban campus approximately five minutes walk from Liverpool City Centre, at the top of Brownlow Hill and Mount Pleasant. Occupying 100 acres, it contains 192 non-residential buildings that house 69 lecture theatres, 114 teaching areas and state-of-the-art research facilities.

The main site is divided into three faculties: Health and Life Sciences; Humanities and Social Sciences; and Science and Engineering. The Veterinary Teaching Hospital (Leahurst) and Ness Botanical Gardens are based on the Wirral Peninsula. There was formerly a marine biology research station at Port Erin on the Isle of Man until it closed in 2006.

Fifty-one residential buildings, on or near the campus, provide 3,385 rooms for students, on a catered or self-catering basis. The centrepiece of the campus remains the University's original red brick building, the Victoria Building. Opened in 1892, it has recently been restored as the Victoria Gallery and Museum, complete with cafe and activities for school visits Victoria Gallery and Museum, University of Liverpool.

In 2007 the University invested £3.5m to modernise the campus with new landscaping, paving, lighting and street furniture.^[18]

In 2011 the University made a commitment to invest £660m into the 'Student Experience', £250m of which will reportedly be spent on Student Accommodation. Announced so far have been two large On-Campus halls of residences (the first of which, Vine Court, opened September 2012 Vine Court, student accommodation, University of Liverpool), new Veterinary Science facilities, and a £10m refurbishment of the Liverpool Guild of Students. New Central Teaching Laboratories Central Teaching Laboratories, University of Liverpool for physics, earth sciences, chemistry and archaeology were opened in autumn 2012. Cosmetic improvements to the campus, such as paving of the Quadrangle Area, have also taken place.^[19]

Academic profile [edit]

Abercromby Square, University of Liverpool

The Chatham Building. University of Liverpool, School of Management

Liverpool has the sixth largest financial endowment of any UK university, valued at £110m, according to the Sutton Trust.^[20] The university is ranked in the top 1% of universities worldwide according to Academic ranking of world universities which makes it a top 100 university globally.^[13] It also is a founding member of the Russell Group of Universities and a founding member of the Northern Consortium.

Its global focus has led the institution to establish a university in the World Heritage city of Suzhou near Shanghai, in partnership with Xi’an Jiaotong University – a top 10 university in China. Representing a new model for a British operation in Higher Education in China, Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (XJTLU) is based in Suzhou Industrial Park – one of Asia’s most successful business parks and a hub for foreign investors, attracting 3,300 international organisations, including 84 Fortune 500 companies. ^[13]

The University is a pre-eminent research-based university with 27,000 students pursuing over 400 programmes spanning 54 subject areas. It has a broad range of teaching and research in both arts and sciences, and the University of Liverpool School of Medicine established in 1835 is today one of the largest medical schools in the UK. It also has strong links to the neighbouring Royal Liverpool University Hospital. In September 2008, Sir Howard Newby took up the post of Vice-Chancellor of the University, following the retirement of Sir Drummond Bone.

The University has a Students' union to represent students' interests, known as the Liverpool Guild of Students.

Whilst Liverpool has a total of five universities, the colloquial term Liverpool University commonly refers to the University of Liverpool rather than any of the other four: Liverpool Hope University, Liverpool John Moores University, Edge Hill University, or LIPA.

Organisation [edit]

The since 2009, teaching departments of the University have been divided into three faculties: Science and Engineering, Health and Life Sciences, and Humanities and Social Sciences. Each faculty is headed by an Executive Pro-Vice-Chancellor, who is responsible for all schools in the faculty. ^[21]

Reputation [edit]

In the Times Good University Guide 2011, the University of Liverpool was ranked 28th.[29]

In the Complete University Guide 2008, published in The Independent, the University of Liverpool was ranked 41st out of 113, based on nine measures,^[22] while The Times Good University Guide 2008 ranked Liverpool 34th out of 113 universities.^[23] The Sunday Times university guide recently ranked the University of Liverpool 27th out of 123.^[24] In 2010, "The Sunday Times has ranked University of Liverpool 29th [4] of 122 institutions nationwide. In 2008 the THE-QS World University Rankings rated University of Liverpool 99th best in the world, and 137th best worldwide in 2009. In 2011 the QS World University Rankings^[25] ranked the university in 123rd place, up 14. Times Higher Education are publishing a separate ranking soon.

Green issues [edit]

In 2008 the University of Liverpool was voted joint seventeenth greenest university in Britain by WWF supported company Green League.^[53] This represents an improvement after finishing 55th in the league table the previous year.^[54]

The position of the university is determined by point allocation in departments such as Transport, Waste management, sustainable procurement and Emissions amongst other categories; these are then transpired into various awards.^[55] Liverpool was awarded the highest achievement possible in Environmental policy, Environmental staff, Environmental audit, Fair trade status, Ethical investment policy and Waste recycled whilst also scoring points in Carbon emissions, Water recycle and Energy source.^{[citation needed]}

Liverpool was the first among UK universities to develop their desktop computer power management solution, which has been widely adopted by other institutions.^[56] The university has subsequently piloted other advanced software approaches further increasing savings.^[57] The university has also been at the forefront of using the Condor HTC computing platform in a power saving environment. This software, which makes use of unused computer time for computationally intensive tasks usually results in computers being left turned on. The university^[58] has demonstrated an effective solution for this problem using a mixture of Wake-on-LAN and commercial power management software.^[59]

Involvement with the Arms Trade [edit]

In 2013, the University of Liverpool paid to become a "website sponsor" of the Clarion Counter-Terror Expo which is a trade fair, which will be held in London in May 2014, in which armoured vehicles and surveillance equipment are sold to authoritarian regimes. ^[60]

Sport [edit]

University of Liverpool's Sports Centre

The University of Liverpool has a proud sporting tradition and has many premier teams in a variety of sports. The current sporting project comes under the title of Sport Liverpool and offers nearly 50 different sports ranging from football, rugby, cricket and hockey to others such as windsurfing, lacrosse and cheerleading.

Many of the sports have both male and female teams and most are involved in competition on a national scale. BUCS^[61] is the body which organises national university competitions involving 154 institutions in 47 sports. Most sports involve travelling to various locations across the country, mainly on Wednesday afternoons.

Two other prominent competitions are the Christie Championships^[62] and the Varsity Cup. The Christie Cup is an inter-university competition between Liverpool, Leeds and Manchester. The Varsity Cup is a popular "derby" event between Liverpool John Moores University and the University of Liverpool.

Notable alumni [edit]

Charles Glover Barkla. Nobel Prize in Physics (1917)

Charles Scott Sherrington. Nobel Prize in Medicine/Physiology (1932)

Tung Chee Hwa. The first President of the Executive Council of Hong Kong

Barham Salih. Prime Minister of Iraqi Kurdistan

Tony McNulty. Minister of State for London & Minister of State for Employment and Welfare Reform

Sir Dawda Jawara, First Prime Minister of The Gambia

• Clive Barker
• Charles Barkla, physicist and Nobel Laureate
• Hossein Bashiriyeh, Iranian professor of political science
• Stephen Bayley
• Torben Betts, playwright
• Roger Bolton, broadcaster and television producer
• Paula Byrne
• Philip Clarke, CEO Tesco PLC
• Steve Coppell, footballer and manager
• Alexander Critchley M.P. for Liverpool Edge Hill 1893 -1943.
• Frances Crook
• Victoria Derbyshire
• Frank Duckworth
• Carol Ann Duffy, Poet Laureate
• Steve Firth, musician
• Maxwell Fry, modernist architect
• Ernest Gibbins, dipterist
• Rob Grant
• Nick Grimshaw
• Brian Hall, footballer
• Rose Heilbron, famous barrister and judge
• William Holford, Baron Holford, architect and town planner
• John Holt, physicist
• Barry Horne (footballer), journalist and pundit
• Beverley Hughes MP PC
• Dr Robert Roland Hughes, pioneer in Neuroscience and Electroencephalography
• Frank Irving, aeronautical engineer, glider pilot and author
• Sir Dawda Kairaba Jawara, First President and Prime Minister of The Gambia
• Rory Jennings, actor
• Sanjay Jha, Co-CEO Motorola, Inc. and CEO of Motorola's Mobile Devices business
• Syed Kamall
• Brian Keaney, children's author
• Sir Frank Kermode, literary critic
• Professor Sir Ian Kershaw, historian
• Peter Kilfoyle
• Robert Legget
• Sir Leigh Lewis, permanent secretary
• Oliver W F Lodge
• Chris Lowe, musician
• Diarmaid MacCulloch, historian
• Rex Makin, solicitor and philanthropist
• Helen Marnie, member of the band Ladytron
• Anna Maxwell Martin
• Rod I. McAllister
• Declan McManus (Honorus Causa)
• Tony McNulty (Labour Minister)
• Brian Millard, leader of Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council from 2005 to 2007
• Margaret Murphy, crime writer
• Doug Naylor, co-creator of Red Dwarf
• Sir John Neale, historian of Tudor England
• Ernest Newman, music critic and biographer of Wagner
• Lord Nicholls, retired Law Lord
• Gordon Oakes
• Stel Pavlou
• David Andrew Phoenix OBE, biochemist
• Dee Plume and Sue Denim, musicians from the band Robots in Disguise
• Phil Redmond, television producer
• Wolfgang Rindler, physicist
• Dame Stella Rimington, Director-General of MI5
• Winifred Robinson, broadcaster
• Patricia Routledge, actress
• Barham Ahmad Salih, Prime Minister of Kurdistan Regional Government
• Amha Selassie of Ethiopia
• Sir Robin Saxby
• Maeve Sherlock OBE
• Margaret Simey, social and political campaigner
• F.E. Smith, 1st Earl of Birkenhead
• Martin Smith, vehicle designer
• Jon Snow, Channel 4 television news presenter
• Olaf Stapledon, novelist and philosopher
• Sir James Stirling, architect
• Lytton Strachey, biographer and essayist
• Sir Michael Thompson, academic
• Steve Voake, children's author
• Tung Chee Hwa, first Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China
• Baroness Walmsley, politician
• "Professor" Sid Watkins, former Formula 1 chief medical officer
• Sir David Weatherall, Regius Professor of Medicine (Oxford), 1992–2000
• Laurence Westgaph, social historian and activist
• Jim Woodcock, professor of software engineering
• Verna Wright, evangelist, physician and research scientist
• Wade Barrett, professional wrestler
• Warrington Yorke, Professor of Tropical Medicine, University of Liverpool

Nobel Prize winners [edit]

Sir Ronald Ross discovered that the malaria parasite is transmitted by mosquitoes

There have been eight Nobel Prize Laureates who have been based at the University during a significant point in their career.

• Sir Ronald Ross (awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1902) for his work with malaria.
• Professor Charles Barkla (awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1917) for discovering the electromagnetic properties of X-rays.
• Sir Charles Sherrington (awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology/Medicine in 1932) for his research into neurons.
• Sir James Chadwick (awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1935) for discovering neutrons.
• Sir Robert Robinson (awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1947) for his research into anthocyanins and alkaloids.
• Professor Har Gobind Khorana (awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology/Medicine in 1968) for his work on the interpretation of the genetic code and its function in protein synthesis.
• Professor Rodney Porter (awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology/Medicine in 1972) for his discovery of the structure of antibodies.
• Professor Joseph Rotblat (awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1995) for his efforts with nuclear disarmament.

See also [edit]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: University of Liverpool

• Liverpool Knowledge Quarter
• Russell Group
• Liverpool University Press
• Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine
• Royal Liverpool University Hospital
• Liverpool University School of Architecture
• List of modern universities in Europe (1801–1945)
• Cayman Islands Law School
• Liverpool Life Sciences UTC

References [edit]

Further reading [edit]

• Rigg, J. Anthony (1968) "A comparative history of the libraries of Manchester and Liverpool Universities up to 1903", in: Saunders, W. L., ed. University and Research Library Studies: some contributions from the University of Sheffield Post-graduate School of Librarianship and Information Science. Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1968

External links [edit]

• University of Liverpool
• XJTLU Official Site in English
• Liverpool Guild of Students'
• LS Radio – The University's Student Radio
• Victoria Gallery & Museum at University of Liverpool

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