The University of Wolverhampton is a public university located on four campuses across the West Midlands, Shropshire and Staffordshire in England. The roots of the university lie in the Wolverhampton Tradesmen’s and Mechanics’ Institute founded in 1827 and the 19th-century growth of the Wolverhampton Free Library (1870), which developed technical, scientific, commercial and general classes. This merged in 1969 with the Municipal School of Art, originally founded in 1851, to form the Wolverhampton Polytechnic.
The university has four faculties comprising eighteen schools and institutes. It has 18,875 students and currently offers over 380 undergraduate and postgraduate courses.
The city campus is located in Wolverhampton city centre, with a second campus at Walsall and a third in Telford. There is an additional fourth campus in Wolverhampton at the University of Wolverhampton Science Park. The university also operates a Health Education Centre in Burton-upon-Trent for nursing students.
The university is noted for its success in encouraging wider participation in higher education. The university draws two-thirds of its students from the West Midlands, and has about 2500 international students.
Between 2005 and 2009 five staff were awarded National Teaching Fellowships.
In May 2008 the university was awarded seven Knowledge Transfer Partnerships, securing its top position in the West Midlands. In September 2009 it was awarded £24.3 million for knowledge transfer, bringing it to 2nd place nationally for the number of KTPs it runs. The university will lead a consortium of all 12 of the universities in its region to increase the number of partnerships from 70 to 210 over the next three years.
The National Student Survey 2016 found that 84% of students at the University of Wolverhampton were satisfied overall with their course.
In June 2013, a university team won a Times Higher Education Leadership and Management Award (THELMA) in the category of Knowledge Exchange/Transfer Initiative of the Year for its “one-stop shop” approach to promoting services to businesses.
In May 2016, the university was awarded ‘Business of the Year’ at the Express & Star Business Awards, where its contribution to the region’s economy was hailed as ‘truly outstanding’.
The university was second in the UK for graduate employability for universities of its size (with 2,000-3,000 full-time undergraduate graduating students) – 96% of students who graduated from the University of Wolverhampton in 2015 were in work or further study six months after they had left.
In addition, the university was commended with the highest level of commendation by the Quality Assurance Agency in 2015 for the ‘enhancement of student learning opportunities.