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CUC - Brunel Institute for Bioengineering - Brunel University cuconsortium.org.uk | West University Dentistry In A Great Location - West University Dentist... dentisthouston.com | UW Health, University of Wisconsin Hospital, Madison, UW Health,... uwhealth.org | University of Chicago Comer Children's Hospital Building Fact Sheet... uchicagokidshospital.org |
  Brunel University is a higher education institution situated in West London, England. In the latest Government Research Assessment Exercise, 82% of research submitted was rated as of international standing. The university has recently spent £250 million redeveloping its campus, including new and refurbished social, teaching and sporting facilities.
[edit] HistoryBrunel is one of a number of British universities created in the 1960s following the Robbins Report on higher education (often called the plate glass universities). The university's origins lie in Acton Technical College, which was split into two sections in 1957 – Acton Technical College continued to cater for technicians and craftsmen, and the new Brunel College of Technology (named after Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the British engineer) was dedicated to the education of chartered engineers. In 1961 Brunel College of Technology was awarded the status of College of Advanced Technology, and it was decided that it should expand at another site in order to accommodate the extra buildings that would be needed. Uxbridge, Hillingdon was chosen to house the new buildings, and work hadn’t even started before the Ministry of Education officially changed the College’s status: it was officially named Brunel College of Advanced Technology in 1962 – the 10th Advanced Technology College in the country, and the last to be awarded this title. The Royal Charter giving university status was awarded on 9 June 1966. The University continued to use both campuses until 1971 when it finally left the Acton site. In 1980 the University merged with Shoreditch College of Education, located at Cooper's Hill, Runnymede. This became Brunel's second campus. In 1995 the University expanded again, integrating the West London Institute of Higher Education, and adding campuses in Osterley and Twickenham. This increased the number of courses that Brunel University was able to offer. Traditionally the university's strengths were in engineering, science, technology and social sciences but with the addition of the West London Institute, new departments such as arts, humanities, geography & earth science, health and sports science were added, and the size of the student body increased to over 12,000. Then Brunel put together a £250 million Masterplan,[2] to sell off the sites at Runnymede, Osterley and Twickenham, using the revenue to renovate and update the buildings and facilities on the Uxbridge campus. Works carried out so far include a library extension, a state-of-the-art sports complex, renovated students' union facilities, a new Heath Sciences teaching centre, and the building of more halls of residence.
In recent years Brunel University has been the subject of controversy as its approach to higher education has been both market-driven and politically conservative. The decision to award an honorary degree to Margaret Thatcher in 1996, following the University of Oxford's refusal to do so, provoked an outcry by staff and students, and as a result the ceremony had to be held in the House of Lords instead of on campus. In the late 1990s, the Departments of Physics, Chemistry, and Materials Engineering were all closed, and, in 2004, the then Vice-Chancellor Steven Schwartz, initiated the reorganisation of the university's faculties and departments into schools, and announced the closure of the Department of Geography and Earth Sciences[4]. The present Vice-Chancellor, the sociologist Christopher Jenks[5] took office in 2006. [edit] Coat of ArmsThe Coat of Arms was granted to the University in 1966 incorporating various images representative of the University's heritage and principles. For example, the masonry arch symbolises Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the compass and cogwheel symbolise technology, the ermine lozenge is an allusion to the Arms of Lord Halsbury, the first Chancellor of the University and the crest of the swan symbolises Uxbridge.[6] [edit] Halls of residenceThe University’s £250 million campus redevelopment programme, completed in 2008, saw the refurbishment of existing halls and the construction of the new Isambard Complex. There are now 34 self-catering halls of residence (31 with en suite facilities), all on-campus, with a total of 4,549 rooms, including studio flats. Rooms are available for undergraduates, postgraduates, students with disabilities and co habiting couples. All rooms have network access. Many of the halls of residence around the Uxbridge campus are named after bridges that Isambard Kingdom Brunel either built or helped to design; other halls are named either directly after him, or after other notable engineers or scientists. For example: 
There are also three accommodation complexes: the Bishop Complex (Bishop, Kilmorey, Lacy and St Margaret’s Halls); the Lancaster Complex (Lancaster, Stockwell, Southwark, Borough Road, Maria Grey and Gordon Halls); and the Isambard Complex (North, Meadow, Michael Bevis, Concourse, Stephen Bragg, West, Maurice Kogan, David Neave, Central, East, Runnymede, George Shipp, Trevor Slater, Shoreditch, Syd Urry, South and Brian Winstanley Halls). Videos of all halls of residence can be found here Brunel University Accommodation All residences (on campus) have a network connection which provides limited and monitored access to the Internet.[1] [edit] League tablesBrunel has fallen in the league table rankings in recent years. In the past Brunel performed well in both The Guardian and The Times tables at least in part due to the university's good performance in the Teaching Quality Assessment (every subject received a score of 20/24 or better). However, the compilers of both league tables have moved away from using the TQA and now use National Student Survey (NSS) results to calculate the rankings. The Independent University Guide 2010 ranks Brunel 41st in its league table. The Times Good University Guide 2010 places Brunel 47th overall. The Guardian Good University Guide 2009/10 ranks Brunel 53rd overall. The Complete University Guide 2009, ranked Brunel University 41st in the UK in its 2009 ratings.[7] This reflects Brunel's good performance in the RAE 2008. The Times Higher Education Supplement (THES) world university rankings 2008 placed Brunel University at 296 in the world.[8] This made it the 38th listed UK institution, which reflects its returns in the RAE 2008 which saw it ranked 37-39 (joint) in Research Power by the Research Power Table.[9] People & Planet - Green League In 2008 The People & Planet Green League ranked Brunel at 84th[10] down 57 places. In 2007 the University was ranked 27th[11].
[edit] Formula StudentBrunel was one of the first UK universities to enter the Formula Student[30] engineering competition. It is an annual event in which universities from around the world compete in static and dynamic events using formula style racing cars designed and manufactured by students. The Brunel Racing[31] team is composed of undergraduate and postgraduate students, each being allocated an area of the car to develop. The students on MEng Mechanical Engineering courses act as team leaders and manage BEng students throughout the year to ensure a successful completion of a new car each year. Brunel Racing were UK Class 1 Formula Student Champions in 2002, and were the leading UK team at Formula ATA 2005, the Italian Formula Student event. In 2006 Formula Student Event, Brunel Racing were also the highest finishing UK competitor using E85 (fuel comprising of 85% ethanol and 15% petrol.) At Formula Student UK '09, Brunel Racing finished 6th overall in Class 1 and were UK Runners-Up by only 1.6 points of the 1000 available. In the process Brunel's 11th car, BR-X, finished 3rd in the fuel economy standings, 4th in the endurance and had the highest combined Endurance Economy Event score. The university also runs a second racing team, comprising exclusively of post-graduate students from the MSc Automotive and Motorsports Engineering course, called Brunel Masters Motorsports.[32] The 20 students on this course are from 10 different countries, with various cultural backgrounds and a with a wide range of industry experience. The BMM team were the UK Class 2 Formula Student Champions in their first year, 2005. Brunel's Formula Student teams have won prizes at the annual competition every year since they first entered in 1999. [edit] Notable alumnisee Alumni of Brunel University [edit] Politics
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