The University of Southampton (abbreviated as Soton in post-nominal letters[5]) is a public research university in Southampton, England. Southampton is a founding member of the Russell Group of research-intensive universities in the United Kingdom, and ranked in the top 100 universities in the world.
The university has seven campuses. The main campus is located in the Highfield area of Southampton and is supplemented by four other campuses within the city: Avenue Campus housing the School of Humanities, the National Oceanography Centre housing courses in Ocean and Earth Sciences, Southampton General Hospital offering courses in Medicine and Health Sciences, and Boldrewood Campus housing an engineering and maritime technology campus and Lloyd’s Register. In addition, the university operates a School of Art based in nearby Winchester and an international branch in Malaysia offering courses in Engineering. Each campus is equipped with its own library facilities.
The University of Southampton currently has 14,705 undergraduate and 7,960 postgraduate students, making it the largest university by higher education students in the South East region. The University of Southampton Students’ Union, provides support, representation and social activities for the students ranging from involvement in the Union’s four media outlets, to any of the 200 affiliated societies and 80 sports. The university owns and operates a sports ground for use by students and also operates a sports centre on the main campus.
Rankings and Reputation
| National rankings | |
|---|---|
| Complete (2022) | 13 |
| Guardian (2022) | 17 |
| Times / Sunday Times (2022) | 15= |
| Global rankings | |
| THE (2022) | 124 |
| QS (2023) | 78 |
| ARWU (2021) | 151-200 |
| British Government assessment | |
| Teaching Excellence Framework | Silver |
In the 2023 international university rankings, Southampton ranked 78th (QS World University Rankings) and 124th (Times Higher Education World University Rankings).[101] The 2021 U.S. News and World Report ranks Southampton 97th in the world and 11th in the UK.
Southampton was originally awarded Bronze (“provision is of satisfactory quality”) in the 2017 Teaching Excellence Framework, a government assessment of the quality of undergraduate teaching in universities and other higher education providers in England.[103] The Bronze award was appealed by the university, however it was rejected by the HEFCE in August 2017. In response, the university’s Vice Chancellor, Christopher Snowden, claimed the exercise was “devoid of any meaningful assessment of teaching” and that “there are serious lessons to be learned if the TEF is to gain public confidence.”[106] Enrollment into the exercise was voluntary and institutions were made aware of the metrics used before agreeing to be assessed by the TEF. In January 2018, the university confirmed that it would re-enter the TEF believing that it would benefit from changed evaluations that would benefit Russell Group universities. In 2018, Southampton was awarded Silver by the Teaching Excellence Framework Panel.
The Guardian ranked the university at number 1 in the UK for Civil Engineering[110] and Electronic and Electrical Engineering in 2020.
In the 2014 Research Excellence Framework assessing the research output of 154 British Universities and Institutes, Southampton was ranked 18th for GPA (15th among Russell Group Universities), 11th for research power (11th among Russell Group Universities), and 8th for research intensity (7th among Russell Group Universities).