Distinctiveness and Quality

Bath Spa University is a medium-sized university of around 7,000 students. It provides a broad portfolio of courses at both undergraduate and postgraduate level with its major areas of provision in the visual and performance arts, digital media, humanities, teacher education, social sciences, science and business studies.

Outstanding Teaching

The courses at Bath Spa University are of proven quality, attractive to students and highly relevant for subsequent employment:

• Bath Spa University achieves consistently high scores on indicators of teaching quality in the annual national students' survey (88% in 2009 compared to a national figure of 83% for all UK universities). Bath Spa was ranked joint 7th university in the country for the quality of its teaching and learning in the league table published by The Times Higher in January 2010.
• The Quality Assurance Agency's latest Institutional Audit of the University (2008) expressed full confidence in university's standards and of the management of learning opportunities. There were no recommendations around areas for development that might be essential or advisable. Four areas of good practice were identified including our involvement of external reviewers; the positive link between research and students' learning opportunities; and the way in which staff development made a positive and direct contribution to teaching quality.
• We have the highest proportion of national teaching fellows in the South West.
• All Bath Spa Students follow a course that emphasises transferable skills and employability. The entire modular scheme was revised in 2009 to increase the employability of students. All graduates now benefit from a degree programme that provides a wide student experience, with clear improvements to their future employment prospects. Many of our Arts Degrees now have an "entrepreneurial third year". As one example, the 40 students on the Creative Media Practice Degree are based at Arts Work Media, which is on a thriving Business Park for Creative Industries in Bristol. They work collaboratively on digital media commissions using employers as clients. Within Performing Arts, the 35 third year students plan their own enterprises in order to join 'Launch Pad', a scheme to enable third year and graduate companies to become self-sufficient businesses.
• Bath Spa's lecturing staff of over 450 includes over 200 practitioners with recent and current industry experience, helping to ensure that students graduate with industry-ready expertise.
• We have unique, outstanding quality courses in areas including our MA in creative writing about which one publisher is quoted as saying. "The course is renowned for producing [graduates] who go on to have brilliant writing careers." Another says that "it produces writing that we, as an agency, can do business with - from remarkable literary debuts to distinguished commercial fiction, and all points in-between. In that regard, this course has no equal."
• One area of particular distinctiveness for BSU is environmentally focused literary and cultural criticism, ecocriticism. In recent years ecocriticism has become a major movement in literacy and cultural studies across the globe. In the UK Bath Spa University pioneered this approach and we are still the only university in Britain that makes it central to our curriculum. The first British module in ecocriticism started here in 1992.

Research and Scholarship

Bath Spa has a strong record in research and is notable for linking its research to teaching:

• The University has research activity across all of its academic schools with particular strengths, as measured in the independent Research Assessment Exercise (RAE2008 - see www.rae.ac.uk), in Art and Design, English and Creative Writing, History, Music, and Psychology. All ten subject areas entered in RAE2008 (Biological Sciences, Geography, Psychology, Education, English and Creative Writing, Study of Religions, History, Art and Design, and Communication, Cultural and Media Studies) were judged to be contributing internationally recognised research (2* and above). In five areas (Music, Communication, Cultural and Media Studies, Art and Design, History and English) some of the research was awarded a world-leading rating (4*).
• In the league table produced by Lancaster University, Bath Spa is placed as 78th out of a league table containing 117 universities. Of the 77 universities placed above Bath Spa 59 were Chartered Universities with a far longer history of carrying out research. All ten of its submissions to the 2008 research assessment exercise contained some research graded as "internationally recognised" or better and five were judged to have some of their research at a "world leading" level.
• A new centre for postgraduate and doctoral level study in educational development has been established at Corsham Court (formally the home of the Bath Academy of Art) – a significant addition to the University's research infrastructure.

Bath Spa's Regional Impact

Bath Spa forms an important part of the region's economic infrastructure and makes a significant contribution to the cultural life of the region:

• Partnerships involving Foundation Degree programmes with five FE Colleges and two private educational institutions across the region all serve to help provide access to higher education for the widest range of students. Nearly one in twelve of BSU students are taught at a partner institution, making Bath Spa the third largest provider of franchised provision pro-rata to size, out of 13 in the South West.
• Nearly 4,000 trainee teachers have graduated from Bath Spa University in the past 10 years. These were trained in partnerships with over 600 schools.
• The University has an annual turnover of over £55 million. This would result in a full economic impact in the region of approaching £150 million in 2010/11 (multiplier from UUK report. The Economic Impact of UK HEIs, 2006, ISBN 1 84036096 8).
• Bath Spa University employs 550 staff making it one of the largest employers in the North East Somerset Constituency.
• 317 students took part in 560 separate volunteering activities in the local community in 2009/10. For example one evening a week for 6 weeks, volunteers run activities and offer pupils one to one support to young people with their numeracy and literacy skill and to boost their confidence and self esteem.
• In June 2010, 29 students took part in a series of one-day practical activities with local organisations. Students worked with the 'On Board' community group to prepare Oldfield Park station for a national community garden award. They also spent a day redecorating Hillside Community Centre, a further day constructing animal shelters at Bath City Farm and they also took part in a beach clean with the National Trust at Portishead.
• The University's expertise in courses related to the visual and performing arts provides a rich source of creative cultural output for Bath and beyond. In 2009/10 there were well over 100 performances or exhibitions by students in the Bath Area. These included a wide variety of theatre productions, a full fashion show, multiple music performances by Bath Spa Students and exhibitions of students' work.

Measures of Success

The University has an outstanding record against a wide range of performance indicators:

• Leading reputation for teacher education – PGCE courses were rated Grade 1 ('outstanding') by Ofsted in 2011 in programmes leading to qualified teacher status in primary, secondary and further education, making Bath Spa University one of highest rated teacher education providers in the country (only three providers have achieved three 'outstanding' grades). Please see the School of Education website for more information.
• The University has a strong and successful record of student recruitment over the past five years and more. It has consistently and comfortably met its HEFCE targets for student recruitment and has a strong applications to places ratio (6.1 for Bath Spa in 2010/11, against an average of 4.5:1 for modern universities).
• In 2008/09, 92.6% of graduates were in work/further study after 6 months, compared to 91% nationally.
• Only 5% of students drop out in their first year compared to a national average of 7%.
• HEFCE predicts that 86% of Bath Spa students will complete their programme of study compared with 78% in the UK as a whole. This is the best predicted performance of any 'modern' university.
• Bath Spa University admits a higher proportion of disabled students than the national average: 8.2% compared with 4.7% of HE students nationally.
• Bath Spa University is the only university to have been awarded the Eco-Campus Platinum Award in recognition of progress in reducing its environmental impact and its commitment to continuous improvement. It was placed 11th out of 133 in the recent Times Higher Education Green League.
• Bath Spa University has a consistently strong track record in achieving year-on-year operating surpluses, and is one of only 18 (out of 160) universities in the sector with no external borrowings. The university enjoys a robust cash position. Surplus funds held on bank deposits and short-term investments at 31 July 2010 were equivalent to 12 months operating expenses for the same period.

Last updated 26 April 2012.