University of Strathclyde

The University of Strathclyde (Oilthigh Srath Chluaidh), Glasgow, Scotland, is Glasgow's second university by age, founded in 1796 by Professor John Anderson, and receiving its Royal Charter in 1964 as the UK's first technological university. It takes its name from the historic Kingdom of Strathclyde and is characterised today by leading research of international standing, with a reputation for excellence across research, education and knowledge exchange. The University of Strathclyde is Scotland's third largest university by number of students carrying an international reputation and outlook, with students and staff from over 100 countries.

History
The university founded in 1796 through the will of Professor John Anderson, professor of Natural Philosophy at the University of Glasgow who left instructions and the majority of his estate to create a second university in Glasgow which would focus on "Useful Learning" – specialising in practical subjects – "for the good of mankind and the improvement of science, a place of useful learning". The University later named one of the two campuses after him.

In 1828, the institution was renamed Anderson's University, partially fulfilling Anderson's vision of two universities in the city of Glasgow. The name was changed in 1887, to reflect the fact that there was no legal authority for the use of the title of 'university'. As a result the Glasgow and West of Scotland Technical College was formed, becoming the Royal Technical College in 1912, and the Royal College of Science and Technology in 1956 concentrating on science and engineering teaching and research. Undergraduate students could qualify for degrees of the University of Glasgow or the equivalent Associate of the Royal College of Science and Technology (ARCST).

Under Principal Samuel Curran, internationally respected nuclear physicist (and inventor of the scintillation counter), the Royal College gained University Status, receiving its Royal Charter to become The University of Strathclyde in 1964, merging with the Scottish College of Commerce at the same time. Contrary to popular belief, The University of Strathclyde was not created as a result of the Robbins Report – the decision to grant the Royal College university status had been made earlier in the 1960s but delayed as a result of Robbins Report. The University of Strathclyde was the UK's first technological university reflecting its history, teaching and research excellence in technological education. In 1993, the University incorporated Jordanhill College of Education.

The university has developed its reputation and grown from approximately 4,000 full-time students in 1964 to over 20,000 students in 2003, when it celebrated the 100th anniversary of the laying of the foundation stone of the original Royal College building. Today, the university is a major educational centre, the largest postgraduate provider in Scotland and one of the largest in the UK (HESA 2006)for post-graduate studies and research, with students from around 90 countries.

Organisation
Departments are organised into four faculties:
 * Humanities & Social Sciences
 * Engineering
 * Science
 * Strathclyde Business School

The university delivers teaching to over 25,000 full-time and part-time students: 15,000 undergraduates and 10,000 postgraduates. Another 34,000 people take part in continuing education and professional development programmes. The university's main campus, John Anderson Campus, is located in the centre of Glasgow, near George Square, and it has an education campus in the suburb of Jordanhill, at the site of the previous Jordanhill Teacher Training College.

Campus development
Currently, the University contains two campuses, John Anderson Campus and the Jordanhill campus. Each campus changed very little from its humble beginnings to the creation of the University of Strathclyde in 1964. The centrepiece building has long been the massive Royal College Building, begun in 1903, and building work took nine years to complete.

The 1960s and 1970s saw a huge programme of new academic buildings being built, and in line with contemporary fashion at the time with other university expansion programmes of the period many of these buildings were built in the distinctive (and controversial) Brutalist architectural style – the McCance (1964), Stenhouse (1974) and Architecture Buildings (1966) all being good examples of this. The 1980s concentrated on developing the student residences. Below is a synopsis of the campus history, along with the current occupiers of each building in brackets:


 * 1912 Completion of Royal College Building
 * 1958 James Weir Building (Mechanical, Design, Chemical and Manufacturing Engineering) – extended in 1960.
 * 1959 Students' Union Building
 * 1959 Opening of Marland House by the General Post Office. Would later become the Graham Hills Building.
 * 1962 Thomas Graham Building (Chemistry)
 * 1963 McCance Building (Houses central administration, History, Politics, Registry)
 * 1965 Livingstone Tower (Mathematics, Statistics, Languages and Computer Sciences(CIS) )
 * 1966 Architecture Building
 * 1967 Colville Building (Civil Engineering, Metallurgy, Physics)
 * 1971 John Anderson Building (Physics, Civil Engineering)
 * 1972 Wolfson Centre (Bioengineering), Birkbeck Court residences
 * 1973 Collins Building (Collins Gallery, Senate/Court suites)
 * 1973 Stenhouse Building (Law)
 * 1974 Construction of the Callanish sculpture and landscaped area (popularly known as "Steelhenge")
 * 1975 University Centre (Refectory, Staff Club, Sports Centre)
 * 1976 Todd Centre (Pharmacology)
 * 1977 William Duncan Building (Strathclyde Business School)
 * 1981 Curran Building created from former Collins warehouse (houses Andersonian Library)
 * 1983 EAC Building (later Lord Hope Building)
 * 1984 Lord Todd restaurant, acquisition of the Barony Hall
 * 1987 Acquisition of Marland House from British Telecom, and is later renamed Graham Hills Building.
 * 1990 Opening of James Blyth and Thomas Campbell student residences
 * 1991 Opening of Chancellors' Hall student residences
 * 1992 Graduate Business School building opens
 * 1997 Opening of James Goold Hall of Residence
 * 1998 John Arbuthnott Building (Strathclyde Institute for Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences)
 * 2001 Acquisition of the Rottenrow maternity hospital site – demolition of the Glasgow Royal Maternity Hospital
 * 2002 Thomas Graham Building extension completed
 * 2004 Rottenrow Gardens Opened
 * 2010 Hamnett Wing of the new Strathclyde Institute for Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences building on Cathedral Street

The University is embarking on a major campus renewal project, estimated to take 15 years and cost £300m. As of 2011, the current state of this plan is as follows:


 * The sale of the Jordanhill site and the relocation of its departments to the John Anderson Campus.
 * A new Technology & Innovation Centre built on the Albion Street site will allow relocation of various Engineering research groups. A replacement Student's Union building is slated for this site.
 * A new sports centre building on Cathedral Street is also proposed to replace the one currently housing the sports union, work is now scheduled to begin in 2014, which will allow demolition of the old University Centre complex on the western extreme of the campus.
 * The McCance/Collins/Livingstone Tower complex will be vacated by the year 2023 after their departments relocated, and the buildings returned to Glasgow City Council from whom they have been leased since their construction in the early 1960s. No decision has yet been taken on the future of these buildings beyond this date.
 * An extended Rottenrow Gardens will be created after the Colville Building is demolished in 2015 and North Portland Street is pedestrianised. Works to move the Civil Engineering departments out of the Colville and into the James Weir Building were largely completed by 2011.
 * Tentative plans exist to vacate the Graham Hills Building by 2018, but a firm decision has yet to be reached.
 * A new centrepiece building on the north west corner of the Rottenrow Gardens site will be constructed by the end of the 2010s, and will serve as the new "front door" of the University.
 * The Alexander Turnbull Building on George Street will be vacated and sold in 2012.
 * The original Royal College Building will be vacated by 2016 and sold to a private developer. Likely uses for this building will be private housing or a hotel.

Meanwhile, a new biomedical sciences building was opened in early 2010. It was designed by Shepparrd Robson, and is a purpose-built centre which aims to bring the multi-faceted disciplines of the Institute together under one roof. The building is central to the Institute’s aims of delivering speedier, more efficient drug discovery in a pioneering, world-class centre for research and development. Sited on Cathedral Street in Glasgow, the 8,000m2 building is the gateway to the University campus and city centre from the motorway.

Research Assessment Exercise 2008
The university dropped six places to number 50 in the UK league table published by the Times Higher Education Supplement (THES). although it did rank highly in a number of areas in the same newspaper article – 8th in the UK for Pharmacy, 12th for Business and management studies, 17th for Chemistry, 13th for Law, 21st for Electrical and Electronic Engineering and 12th for Allied health professions and studies. However the RAE 2008 led directly to cuts in the university's research funding in 2009.

Royal College Building
The Royal College Building, is the oldest building on the John Anderson Campus. Started in 1903 and completed in 1912, it was partially opened in 1910 and at the time was the largest educational building in Europe for technical education. Originally built as the Glasgow and West of Scotland Technical College Building, it now houses Bioscience, Chemistry, and Electronic and Electrical Engineering. The building is currently undergoing major internal renovation following the relocation of the Pharmacology and Bioscience departments to new accommodation in the John Arbuthnott (SIPBS) building, and the installation of a new heating system.

IET Power Academy
Strathclyde is the only Scottish university that offers the IET Power Academy engineering scholarships to its engineering students.

Notable Discoveries and Inventions

 * The invention of the world's first working television.
 * The formulation of the Law of Diffusion of Gases.
 * Fingerprint identification.
 * Development and application of wind energy.
 * The separation of paraffin wax, naphtha, lamp oil and lubricating oil.
 * Water filtration.
 * Research inspiration behind Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein.

Notable academics and alumni
See also Category:People associated with the University of Strathclyde

Academics

 * Colin R. McInnes Professor of Space Systems Engineering
 * Alastair McIntosh – Visiting Professor of Human ecology in the Department of Geography and Sociology
 * David Judge, Professor of Politics in the Department of Government.
 * David Hillier, Professor in Accounting and Finance Department.
 * Richard Rose – Professor of Politics and Director, Centre for the Study of Public Policy, 1966–2005
 * Richard Susskind – Law Professor
 * Kim Swales – Economics
 * Robert Van Der Meer – Management Professor
 * Dr Duncan Graham – Professor of chemistry and Deputy Director of WestChem
 * Dr Russell Ong - Professor of Politics in the Department of Government

Alumni

 * Elish Angiolini, Lord Advocate
 * John Logie Baird, inventor of television
 * Lord Bracadale, Senator of the College of Justice, Lord Commissioner of Justiciary
 * Ed Byrne, comedian
 * Annabel Goldie, former Leader of the Conservative Party in the Scottish Parliament.
 * Alex Gray, author
 * Frank Hadden, former coach of the Scotland national rugby union team
 * Hugh Hendry, Founder and manager of hedge fund Eclectica Asset Management
 * Tom Hunter, billionaire entrepreneur
 * Sanjay Jha, Co-CEO, Motorola, Inc., Chief Executive Officer, Motorola Mobile Devices
 * Amar Latif, entrepreneur, world traveller and TV personality (Alumnus Of The Year 2006)
 * Helen Liddell, minister in Blair government and former British High Commissioner to Australia
 * David Livingstone, explorer and missionary
 * Antoin MacGabhann, Irish architect
 * Mouzhan Majidi, architect and CEO of Foster and Partners
 * Gail McGrane weather meteorologist for BBC Scotland
 * Ann McKechin, Member of Parliament
 * Jim Murphy, Labour Member of Parliament and former Secretary of State for Scotland.
 * Iain Neil, Executive Vice President of Panavision
 * Sandra Osborne, Member of Parliament
 * Lord Peebles, Senator of the College of Justice, Lord Commissioner of Justiciary
 * Patrick Prosser, Computer scientist
 * Ainun Nishat, academician
 * Shaf Rasul, millionaire businessman
 * Chris Sawyer, computer game developer
 * Brian Souter, co-founder of the Stagecoach Group
 * Iain Stewart, Geologist and TV Presenter
 * Omar Abdullah, Politician in India (Chief Minister of J & K state)
 * Gordon Larson, Hero
 * Chris Pendergast, Gaelic footballer
 * Alan Gatherer, CTO High Performance Multicore Processing, Texas Instruments.
 * Alex Kapranos, lead singer of Franz Ferdinand (Alumnus Of The Year 2005)
 * Brian Woolfson, radio presenter for Real Radio (Scotland)
 * Dougie Donnelly, BBC Sports presenter