About Us
At a Glance
We are proud to be an internationally recognised and award winning institution with a heritage of quality education going back more than 100 years.
We appear in the Times Higher Education World University rankings, ranked as one of the top 300 universities in the world under 50 years old in the Young University rankings. We were extremely proud to come eighth in the UK in the People and Planet University Green League and also to celebrate an Eco Campus Platinum award.
At Bedfordshire we have a vibrant and cosmopolitan student population that includes around 20,000 students from over 100 countries. We are a modern university that believes in nurturing our students to become educated, employable and entrepreneurial global citizens.
We lead the way in expanding educational opportunity; with more than 40% of our students coming from families with no history of participation in higher education. Around 70% are mature returners to education and over half are from Black or ethnic minority backgrounds, under-represented in higher education.
Studying at the University of Bedfordshire
We have two main campuses in Luton and Bedford, with a large health teaching provision in Aylesbury at the world renowned Stoke Mandeville Hospital.
We are also active in Milton Keynes, London and Birmingham, as well as globally, with a growing portfolio of international partnerships as far afield as Egypt, Vietnam, Oman and Mauritius.
We support our students in all aspects of their life and encourage through the excellent services we provide:
- Superb, modern facilities across all our subject areas
- Study skills development
- Career and job-seeking guidance
- Volunteer and work experience
- Health and wellbeing services
- Modern accommodation
- Personal tutors
- International education partners with opportunities to study overseas
Why Bedfordshire?
- Commended by the QAA for the high quality and standards of our higher education provision (QAA 2015)
- Top 300 University under 50 years old (THE 2021)
- One of 21 Business Schools awarded the Bronze Award for start-up and business growth advice (Small Business Charter)
- 8th in the country in the University Green League (People and Planet 2019)
- Eco Campus Platinum award (2020)
- Continued investment in facilities for our students. Most significantly we opened a £40m STEM building at our Luton campus in 2019.
Our Research
Our pioneering research into child sexual exploitation was named as one of the UK’s 100 best breakthroughs for its significant impact on people’s lives, as was our work on an international research project to develop the world’s first culturally aware robots.
Our Research Institutes work to tackle real-world problems and challenges faced by our communities, providing an evidence base for changes to government legislation.
Some of our more recent projects include Home Office funding to undertake work on modern slavery, the policing of cyber-harassment, and research commissioned by the Children’s Society showing the impact of excluding separated migrant children from legal aid.
Over the past three years we have worked with over 1,500 organisations, including other universities, charities, Government organisations and local businesses on areas of research and knowledge exchange generating a 49% increase in research and knowledge exchange income since 2013.
Our Community
At the University of Bedfordshire we recognise our potential to make a real impact within our communities.
We contribute significantly to the financial and social regional economic growth, both locally and nationally (around £370m Gross Value Added from our core economic footprint).
In addition to our role as a large employer and educator, we are committed to working in partnership with our local area, boosting skills and productivity through knowledge exchange, skills provision, expertise in research and consultancy and also by associating ourselves with many community organisations, projects and initiatives.
We help to attract regeneration and development funding into the region and have grown this income by 25% in the past five years.
Further details of our social and economic contribution to the region can be found in the Social and Economic Impact Report 2020 [PDF]