Sussex climbs Guardian league table
The University of Sussex has climbed seven places in the Guardian university league table 2015, published on 2 June.
Sussex is 43rd in the newspaper’s latest ranking of UK universities, up from 50th in the 2014 guide.
Improved student satisfaction with teaching and an increase in how much the University spends per student have contributed to the rise.
However, Sussex is still some way off its target to return to the UK’s top 20, mainly due to the 2015 guide using 2012 data that shows a relatively lower level of Sussex graduates gaining ‘graduate level’ jobs.
Latest careers data, for Sussex students who graduated in summer 2013, shows that the unemployment rate has halved, 75% of those in work are in ‘graduate level’ jobs and 31% progressed to postgraduate study.
The next round of league table results – beginning with The Times in September and continuing with the 2016 Guardian guide – should start to reflect this more up-to-date, and much improved, performance.
The Vice-Chancellor, Professor Michael Farthing, said: “Our university has traditionally done well in league tables – often in the international top 100 and the UK's top 20. But recently we have taken a bit of a knock and have had to work hard to recover.
“We face up to the fact that we had a bad couple of years with the league tables. We haven’t had a bad two years as a university. We have hired a lot of new staff and our research output is going up.
“Our employability data this year is just stellar - we have worked jolly hard at it and we approached it in a scientific evidence-based way.
“This rise is pleasing but we have got another year before we see the real recovery we are looking for in the league tables.”
The University has also worked hard to improve assessment and feedback, including a major restructuring of the academic year from 2012-13 to include a mid-year assessment period.
Professor Clare Mackie, Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Teaching and Learning), said that four out of five students voted for this change. She said: “These were major changes introduced in the 2012-13 academic year that will take another year to impact on our NSS.
“But we are confident that the changes we have put in place will restore our position, which is essential as we know how important the Guardian guide is.”
This year's guide ranks Sussex in the top 10 nationally in five subject areas:
Social Work (1st); American Studies (5th); Chemistry (6th); Modern Languages (7th); and Drama (10th).
Sussex subjects appearing in the top 25 are: Physics (11th); Media and Film Studies (14th); Medicine (18th); History of Art (19th); English and Creative Writing (23rd); and Computer Science (25th).