The University of Stirling is a public university in Stirling, Scotland, founded by Royal Charter in 1967. It is located in the Central Belt of Scotland, built within the walled Airthrey Castle estate. Since its foundation, it has expanded to four faculties, a Management School, and a number of institutes and centres covering a broad range of subjects in the academic areas of arts and humanities, natural sciences, social sciences, and health sciences and sport.
The University campus is approximately 360 acres (1.5 km2) in size, incorporating the Stirling University Innovation Park and the Dementia Centre. The campus, with its wildlife, loch and mixture of native and exotic flora are located in the foothills of the Ochil Hills and is often cited as among the most beautiful in the UK. In 2002, the University of Stirling and the landscape of the Airthrey Estate was designated by the International Council on Monuments and Sites as one of the UK’s top 20 heritage sites of the 20th century. The institution also occupies buildings in the city of Stirling.
The University attracts students from a wide range of backgrounds, with more than 14,000 part-time and full-time students enrolled in the 2020/21 academic year. Stirling has international degree programme partnerships in China with Hebei Normal University, Singapore with Singapore Institute of Management, and Oman. The University offers a MSc in Human Rights & Diplomacy, this is the only Human Rights and Diplomacy programme in the world taught in partnership with the leading training body of the United Nations: the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR).
Reputation and Rankings
| National rankings | |
|---|---|
| Complete (2022) | 45 |
| Guardian (2022) | 28 |
| Times / Sunday Times (2022) | 38 |
| Global rankings | |
| THE (2022) | 301–350 |
| QS (2023) | 417= |
| ARWU (2021) | 801–900 |
Stirling is a mid-ranked, pre-1992 UK university with a reputation for high teaching quality[62] and socially relevant research. It is among the top 50 universities in the world that are under 50 years old – 2nd in the UK and 46th in the world, according to the Times Higher Education World University Rankings, and among the top 40 in the UK in the Complete University Guide.
The University is ranked 1st in Scotland and 3rd in the UK for graduate employability according to the Higher Education Statistics Agency, with more than 96% of graduates in employment, or further study, within six months of graduating.[65]
In 2016 the University of Stirling achieved 5 stars in the QS World University Rankings in five categories – “Teaching”, “Employability”, “Facilities”, “Inclusiveness” and “Internationalisation”. In The Complete University Guide 2017, Stirling was ranked 1st in the UK for Social Work, 2nd in Scotland for Communication and Media Studies, and 2nd in Scotland for Marketing.
The University of Stirling was ranked 5th in Scotland and 40th in the UK for research intensity in the 2014 assessment of research in the UK, the Research Excellence Framework.[67] The University was one of the twenty institutions to be awarded a Queen’s Anniversary prize in 2014 – the prize for Higher and Further Education for ground-breaking research, recognising work led by the Institute of Social Marketing into the effects of tobacco, alcohol and food marketing on the health of young people. In March 2016, the University of Stirling Management School was accredited by the Association of MBAs (AMBA) for its MBA and MBM programmes.