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• 29 April 2016
• • Sussex confirms top-20 place in all major UK league tables
  • University's third Vice-Chancellor Sir Denys Wilkinson passes away on 22 April 2016
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Sussex confirms top-20 place in all major UK league tables

The University of Sussex has confirmed its place in the top 20 in all three major UK league tables, after climbing three places in the Complete University Guide 2017.

Published on Monday 25 April, the guide ranks Sussex 18th in the UK.

The latest ranking completes a clean sweep of UK league table top 20s – Sussex is currently 19^th in the both theGuardian and The Times/Sunday Times guides, and is in the top 20 of the Times Higher Education’s ‘Table of Tables’.

A key factor behind this success has been a huge focus on boosting the career prospects and employability of Sussex graduates and investment in academic services and facilities.

The proportion of Sussex students securing positive destinations (graduate-level jobs and/or postgraduate study) soared from 54 per cent in 2012 to 86 per cent for the class of 2014 (the latest published data).

A survey of Sussex’s 2015 graduates, carried out this January, shows further growth to 88 per cent.

In addition to this, the positive destination rate for Sussex’s first graduate cohort of more than 800 First-Generation Scholars was 90 per cent. The First-Generation Scholars programme, launched in 2012, is aimed at those students who come from low-income backgrounds or are the first in their family to go to university and constitutes just under half of Sussex’s undergraduate intake each year.

The Deputy-Vice-Chancellor, Professor Clare Mackie, said: “We’ve invested heavily in developing really effective careers and employability programmes and linking them to our teaching curriculum so that they are now a core part of the Sussex experience.

“We have more students than ever studying abroad as part of their degrees, taking up industry placements, going on summer internships, attending skills workshops and learning languages. All of this makes our students highly employable and sought after, as these figures show.

“It’s really pleasing that we’ve been able to create a major step change for the University and more importantly, prepare our students for life after university. This latest league table result is a resounding endorsement for our dual approach to providing our students with intellectually stimulating degrees combined with practical, real-life job experience.”

Five subjects at Sussex, covering four schools, were ranked in top-10 positions in the Complete University Guide 2017:

• BMEc: Marketing (6^th)
• HAHP & English: American Studies (2nd place)
• LifeSci: Biological Sciences (10^th), Chemistry (9^th), Neuroscience (Anatomy and Physiology) (7^th)

An additional 10 subjects from seven schools achieved top-20 positions:

• ESW: Social Work (13^th)
• English: 13^th
• Global Studies: Anthropology (11^th)
• HAHP: Art History (11^th), History (19^th), Philosophy (15^th)
• LPS: Politics (18^th), Sociology (11^th)
• MFM: Communications and Media (13^th)
• Psychology: 14^th

All subjects in the top 20 have significantly improved their ranking from last year.

Professor Mackie added that the University’s investment in improving its academic services, such as improved online access to its learning materials (over 3,000 downloads of lectures per day) and a major curriculum review in 2012, had also contributed to the boost in its league table places.

Professor Mackie said: “Our 2016 UCAS undergraduate applications are up 25 per cent against a national increase of less than one per cent and we are looking forward to welcoming another cohort of students in September - we owe it to them to invest in their future success.”