27/05/2012
The Government has announced today that Bishop Grosseteste University College Lincoln meets the criteria to use the title university.
Once the new name has been formally signed off by the Privy Council the institution will change its name to Bishop Grosseteste University. It has unveiled its new corporate identity today.
The Government announced in June that it would reduce the number of students required for an institution to be able to use the university title from 4,000 to 1,000.
This afternoon the Universities Minister David Willetts confirmed that ten institutions including BG have met the new criteria.
"2012 has been a very special year for our institution, one in which we have celebrated 150 years of higher education in Lincoln," said Professor Muriel Robinson, who will become the first Vice Chancellor of Bishop Grosseteste University.
"To be able to take our place alongside other UK universities is a symbolic moment for us which recognises the excellent teaching and research which goes on at BG."
Under the previous rules only institutions with 4,000 or more students could use the title university. Smaller institutions were called university colleges, but now all HE institutions with more than 1,000 students have the right to apply to call themselves a university.
This brings the UK regulations in line with practice elsewhere in the world, where small and specialist universities are common.
BG has around 2,000 students, and Professor Robinson is convinced that university status will benefit the institution and its students..
"Until now there has been confusion among prospective students and employers about what a university college is," she said. "We have 150 years of history, we enjoy an excellent reputation and we have awarded our own degrees since 2006, but the university college title has been a brake on our ability to recruit students and secure the recognition our work deserves.
"Now we will be able to compete with other universities on a level playing field."
Bishop Grosseteste University has today unveiled its new corporate identity. Its logo retains the ecclesiastical purple used previously and now features a bishop's mitre and two lions passant taken from Bishop Robert Grosseteste's episcopal coat of arms. These can be seen on Robert Grosseteste's monument in the South-East Transept at Lincoln Cathedral.
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Notes to editors:
• BG was established in 1862 and celebrates its 150th anniversary in 2012.
• It is an independent higher education institution based in Lincoln and awarding its own degrees at foundation, undergraduate and postgraduate level.
• In June the Government published its response to the Higher Education White Paper. To read more follow this link, paying particular attention to section 3.3:
http://www.bis.gov.uk/assets/biscore/higher-education/docs/g/12-890-government-response-students-and-regulatory-framework-higher-education
• To view today's BIS press release click here:
http://news.bis.gov.uk/Press-Releases/Ten-institutions-on-track-to-become-universities-68404/
• Robert Grosseteste was an English statesman, philosopher, theologian and scientist who was Bishop of Lincoln from 1235 until 1253.
• The historian AC Crombie called Robert Grosseteste "the real founder of the tradition of scientific thought in mediaeval Oxford and, in some ways, of the modern English intellectual tradition."
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