• Sussex is in the top 10 of research universities. Six of the seven subject groups at Sussex came in the top ratings of four and five of the UFC research-selectivity exercise which denotes national and international excellence
• For the third year running Sussex becomes the highest ranking university in the country outside the 'golden triangle' of Oxford, Cambridge and London for receiving 41 British Academy postgraduate studentships
• The Sussex Centre for Neuroscience begins a £4 million project on the molecular and cellular mechanisms of the nervous system
• Professor Roger Silverstone is appointed as the first Chair of Media Studies
• The University's state-of-the-art Computing Centre is opened in November by Sir Lindsay Bryson, Chairman of the University Council
• The University of Sussex Society presents its first honorary Fellowships to Lord Briggs, Sir Richard Attenborough and Adrian Mugridge, the first President of the Student Union
• In December Professor Harry Kroto is awarded the 1992 Prize for New Materials for the discovery of Buckminster Fullerenes
• During January's Winter Graduation at the Gardner Centre Levon Chilingirian is made an honorary graduate. The Chilingirian Quartet has been in residence at the Gardner Centre since 1978
• A major new exhibition 'The Art of Death' is organised at the V&A by Dr Nigel Llewellyn, Sussex art historian
• During February Sussex researchers begin a project to assess the extent to which the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has been successful in influencing policy matters and national policies
• In March four local teachers receive honorary degrees in recognition of their contribution to the University's pioneering PGCE course for school-based teacher-training programmes
• Brighton Festival artistic director Gavin Henderson is made honorary graduand at the Court Graduation Ceremony
• The Wolfson Lab for solid state chemistry research officially opens in April
• Two former Sussex students are elected as MPs at the general election and join the new Government: Nigel Forman and Tony Baldry
• Work begins on the new Sussex European Institute: Helen Wallace has been appointed the first Director
• In May Emeritus Professor John Maynard Smith donates £70,000 of his 1991 Balzan prize to the University to set up a new PG studentship scheme for research students within BIOLS
• June sees the long-term future of the University's conference centre at the Isle of Thorns secured with the purchase of the freehold of the estate
• In July a record number of students graduate in person: over 1,000 attended the two ceremonies Among the honorary graduands was Terry Waite collecting the award he should have received in 1987

Student numbers

6,659 students; an increase on last year of around 10 per cent