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Our subjects and staff

We are organised academically as four faculties, each led by a Pro-Vice Chancellor / Executive Dean. Each faculty comprises subject-based Schools and Departments, complemented by research centres and research clusters. 

Our four faculties span almost half of the REF2021 subject groupings, and we submitted to fourteen Units of Assessment in REF2021. 

Learn more about our faculties:

Although we are a teaching-led university, research and scholarship is vital to all areas of our academic portfolio and includes every one of our academic staff. A quarter of our academic staff have significant responsibility for research, and their work has been submitted to REF2021, but all academic staff make an ongoing contribution to the knowledge base of their discipline through scholarship, knowledge transfer activity and innovation support.

Faculties house a variety of research centres and research groups, bringing together groups of experienced academics researching topics which address key local, national, and global challenges. Many centres span multiple schools and departments – especially where research requires a multi-disciplinary approach – and act as research collaboration spaces for researchers from across our faculties.

Multi-disciplinary research is required increasingly to find solutions to the significant challenges facing future societies, linked to climate change, the security of supply of water, food and energy, health and ageing, education, and justice. As a university we are also pursuing a STEAM agenda, where we combine arts thinking into our STEM curriculum to improve creating thinking and problem-solving skills for our student and staff. This focus on STEAM is driving an increasing commitment to the research needed to solve complex technological and societal issues, often linked to the 17 UN sustainability goals.