Tier 2 — Case Study 4: University D

University D’s earliest institutions date back to 1875 and 1878, one of which was a catering college. In 1908 there was a merger between these institutions to create a larger college that subsequently merged with a polytechnic formed in 1991. The university as it stands today was formally created in 1993. University D was one of the first UK universities to create a New York-based campus and has a number of international links with other institutions around the world, including Oman, Bangladesh, China, India, USA and South America. Again, University D is a non-Russell Group university and is not considered to be research-intensive. However, it is ranked in the UK Top Ten for research related to allied health topics, and has research strengths in areas such as the environment, vision science, business, gender equality and public/government finance. In the most recent RAE, the university achieved an overall classification of 2.01. It has a total of approximately 17,0 students from more than 100 countries with a student-staff ratio of 20.9. These figures make University D the smallest of the four universities making up the case studies. More than 68% of students achieve a good honours degree. The university has excellent student facilities with a specialist learning environment, more than 1800 study places and over 2000 computer workstations throughout the campus and halls of residence.