Originally published in The Telegraph on 16 September 2008.

England has become the most crowded nation in Europe, with 395 people per square kilometre Photo: PA

The number of people living in England has overtaken the population density of Holland, which has traditionally been the most densely-populated major nation on the continent. The count, which has been attributed to higher levels of immigration, shows England now has 395 people per square kilometer.

The figures were obtained in a parliamentary answer from the Office of National Statistics. In 2008 the average number of people per square kilometer in Britain was 253, rising to 395 in England. Latest figures from Holland show that its population density was 395 a square kilometer in 2002 and 393 in 2005. It is estimated that English population density will rise to 464 people for every square kilometer by 2031.

The population density in England is already almost double the level in Germany and quadruple that in France. The only country in the European Union with greater crowding is the tiny island of Malta, which only has 400,000 people, most of whom live around the port of Valletta. England has taken its position as the most crowded country in Europe at a point when the risk of economic recession has led to growing concerns over diminishing numbers of jobs and pressure on public services.

London aside, the biggest regional rises in population will be in the east of England and in the South West, which in recent years has attracted the greatest number of migrants who provide labour for agriculture, construction and service industries.

Last night MPs campaigning for “balanced migration” said the figures were a milestone in the immigration debate. Frank Field, the Labour former minister, and Nicholas Soames, the Conservative MP said: “This is a milestone in the immigration debate as immigration accounts for 70 per cent of our population growth. “The Government’s points-based system places no limit on the number of people who are allowed to settle in the UK. If ever there was a case for balanced migration, it is now.” The campaigners estimate that current immigration into Britain is around 300,000 a year, although not all will stay permanently, they calculate that a balanced migration policy would result in a British population of around 65 – 80 million by 2050.

A spokesman for the UK Border Agency, the organisation set up by the Home Office to tighten immigration by admitting only those with skills, said: “Our tough new points system plus our plans for newcomers to earn their citizenship will reduce overall numbers of economic migrants coming to Britain, and the numbers awarded permanent settlement.” Beyond Europe, England’s population density is among the highest in the world for major countries. England ranks third in density after Bangladesh (1,045 per sq km) and South Korea (498 per sq km).

So what conclusions can we draw from this latest university league table? Should we celebrate the fact that four of the top 10 universities in the world are British? Or should we focus on the disappointing statistic that most UK institutions have slid down the world rankings?

The first question, of course, is the question we should ask of any league table: does it mean anything? Each university in this table has been assessed in terms of, first, statistical data on how often work done by its academics has been cited by other academics; on its academic staff/student ratio; and, as an index of its international reputation, on the number of overseas staff it employs and foreign students it is educating.

More controversially, its ranking also depends on two opinion surveys. Academics across the world were asked to name the premier institution in their discipline, and employers what they thought of the graduates they interview and the universities, therefore, that these graduates attended.

Dr Brian Lang, the principal of St Andrews University, questions “the inexplicable seismic shifts” to be found in rankings from one year to the next. He argues that tables should be based on “stable, measurable criteria, not something as volatile as opinion”.

I would add that the apparently objective statistical data are in one crucial sense suspect. The number of times academics are cited by their colleagues might seem a good indicator of the importance of their work and therefore the standing of their university, but, in private, many academics will admit that the whole business of ‘citations’ is open to the charge of collusion. You quote my work and I will quote yours and we will both be famous.

That said, the table has the universities that everyone would expect to be world-class in premier positions and must, therefore, be doing something right. We should celebrate the fact that Oxford and Cambridge, Imperial College and University College London are still in the top 10. Equally, we should ask why other British universities appear to be losing to international competition.

One explanation for the declining status of some UK universities, as vice-chancellors have been quick to point out, is funding. Harvard, the No 1 university in the world, has an endowment fund bigger than the total annual public funding of all universities in the UK.

This means Harvard can use higher salaries and bigger bursaries to lure academic staff and students away from universities such as, say, Oxford and Cambridge. Funding matters, and our top universities will not remain world-class without a large injection of cash.

This will never be found without a radical rethink of higher education in the UK. We do not need to educate 50% of those aged between 18 and 30 to degree level and we should not be wasting public money on fifth-rate institutions, which, having abandoned any pretence that admission depends on academic achievement, still struggle to fill their places. Taxpayers’ money should be spent on those institutions of higher education that properly deserve to be called universities.

I can hear the squeals of protest as I type. What about “the knowledge economy”? What about “widening access” and “increasing participation”? What indeed! These are the myths that are threatening the continued excellence of our top universities.

We live, it is said, in a knowledge economy that depends on a highly skilled workforce. Everyone must stay in education longer to gain these high-level skills. In fact, we need a relatively small number of people who have been educated to a superbly high standard.

Shop workers who swipe credit cards and receptionists in hotels might need to be computer-literate, but the invention of the computer has not changed the nature of their work. They are no more knowledge workers than they were in 1950, and they do not need to spend three years studying for a degree in a pseudo-academic subject to do their jobs effectively.

The government’s expansion of higher education has resulted in appallingly high drop-out rates from too many of the new “universities”. It is producing ever-increasing numbers of graduates who, having incurred thousands of pounds of personal debt, cannot obtain graduate-status employment. And it has done nothing to solve the skills shortages that are so damaging to the British economy.

Neither, I’m afraid, has the drive to widen access done anything much for the bright 18-year-old who has had the misfortune to attend a sink school. What it has done is threaten the academic excellence of those universities that are still excellent.

World-class universities are what they are because they have world-class students and academics. Gordon Brown does not understand this. He wants admissions tutors to favour applicants from state schools and, ideally, failing state schools. Too many vice-chancel-lors are keen to do his bidding. If they were prepared to fight for the independence of their institutions and to defend their right to admit the candidate with the best academic qualifications irrespective of family or educational background, more UK universities might be able to climb higher in the table.

The global competition is bound to intensify. Universities from 13 different countries figure in the top 50 in this league table. Among these are nine Asian institutions. The number of North American universities in the top 100 has dropped slightly. My prediction, if government policy on higher education does not change, is that few, if any, UK universities will be found in the top 10 in a decade’s time. Their academics will have emigrated, tempted by better salaries; their students will have chosen the institution that offers the highest bursary. We have a year or two to decide whether as a nation we want our elite universities to survive.

We have a year or two at most to rescue the concept of an intellectual elite from egali-tarian opprobrium. Will Labour change its spots? Will Cam-eron’s Conservatives renounce social engineering and protect world-class institutions that are in peril? Sadly, neither prospect seems to me very likely.

Chris Woodhead is a professor of education at the University of Buckingham and was chief inspector of schools from 1994 to 2000

Trinity’s success was due largely to it attracting the highest calibre of entrants academically, which the league table rewards above all else. But despite this, its students only got the republic’s third highest grades when graduating.

University College Cork had the best graduate grades, with 71% getting a first or a 2:1 last year compared to Trinity’s 67%. But this was not sufficient for it to retain second place this year as the resurgent University College Dublin overtook it.

NUI, Maynooth, in Co Kildare, was the best in terms of competitive research won per academic, its 249 academics attracting Euros 128,657 each in research funding. University College Cork was next best for research, closely followed by Trinity and University College Dublin. Cork Institute of Technology was the best in its sector for research but, in this category, the universities hugely outshone the institutes.

Employment is consistently high among graduates, with little difference between the seven universities or 14 institutes of technology included in our league table. The best for employment was Waterford IT followed by NUI, Maynooth, where almost 100% of graduates were working or in further education nine months after leaving. The worst for jobs were Letterkenny Institute of Technology, hampered by its peripheral Donegal location, and Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art Design and Technology, due to the precarious nature of jobs in the creative sector.The league table highlights disparities in staffing that can be an important factor in the standard of teaching and academic support. The best student-to-staff ratio is at Dublin Institute of Technology where there is one lecturer per 11 students, while the worst is in NUI, Maynooth, where the 18:1 ratio may be explained by the institution’s rapid expansion.

Good staffing probably also helped Dublin Institute of Technology record the republic’s best completion rate, with just 7% failing to graduate. The poorest completion was at Letterkenny Institute of Technology, where 27% did not gain a degree. Letterkenny has Ireland’s best record for bringing in students from poorer economic backgrounds, however, a factor which affects its performance and helped it fall to last place in this year’s table.

Originally published in The Times Online on 19 September 2008.

Oxford emerges top of two unique surveys conducted for The Sunday Times University Guide that canvass the opinions of university heads of department and secondary school head teachers.

It is the first time any university has triumphed in both surveys. Oxford has always finished top of our academics’ peer assessment exercise, now in its fourth year, with Cambridge previously leading the way in our leading academic schools from both state and private sectors.

This year, Cambridge finishes third in our school heads’ survey with Harper Adams University College finishing second. Smaller specialist institutions often perform well in the school teachers’ survey as it is easier to be cited for excellence in a limited number of subjects than it is over the wider range of courses provided by multi-faculty institutions.

More than 2,000 heads of department and admissions tutors across 30 subject areas were contacted for our peer assessment exercise.

They were asked to grade from one (poor) to five (excellent) undergraduate provision in their specialist area in fellow institutions. In all, 219 responded.

The final results show a remarkable correlation with our main league table. The top five institutions for peer review all feature within the top six of our overall league table, although Imperial College London, the London School of Economics and University College London narrowly edge out Cambridge into fifth place.

Several universities outperform their league table position when ranked by fellow academics, notably Edinburgh (ranking sixth in peer review against 15th overall), Sheffield (eighth v 19th), Bristol (ninth v 16th) and Manchester (10th v 21st). Leeds and Glasgow also make the top 20 for peer assessment, while ranking 26th and 31st respectively overall.

Oxford retains its position as the leading university, according to academics. Although Cambridge gets more excellent ratings (64) than Oxford (49), Oxford gets the higher overall score because it gets no ratings in categories 1, 2 and 3 (poor to average).

Cambridge all but sweeps the board with perfect scores in chemistry, physics, philosophy, mechanical engineering, history and law. Oxford scores heavily in chemistry, physics, philosophy and law, while also recording a string of top scores for economics and history.

Bristol (44), Edinburgh (43) and University College London (41) are the only other institutions to get more than 40 top ratings. Edinburgh is strongest in geography, computer science, law and art; Bristol gains the best results of any university for chemistry, a subject for which it has been designated a centre for excellence in teaching and learning; and UCL records most perfect scores in art and design (it is home to the world famous Slade School of Fine Art), law, geography, economics and biosciences.

Imperial College London, which ranks second in our peer review with 29 perfect ratings, gets exclusively top scores for mechanical engineering, electrical and electronic engineering, civil engineering, computer science and physics.

At the other end of the spectrum, Central Lancashire gets more poor ratings from academics — 16 in all — than any other university. It gets a further 15 scores which rate it below average.

In total, academics passed 5,654 judgments. They gave 1,002 excellent ratings, 1,865 good, 1,467 average, 841 below average and 479 poor.

In our parallel survey of head teachers, questionnaires were sent to the state and independent senior schools that feature in our Parent Power guide of the top academic schools. They were asked to cite universities they felt provided high-quality undergraduate provision. These 1,000-plus schools are putting large numbers of students into the university system every year and we asked their heads to base their judgments on direct experience and feedback from former pupils. More than 1,000 opinions were expressed across 29 subject areas.

The University of the Arts London ranks fourth in our heads’ survey, joining Harper Adams at No 2 and the newly-designated University for the Creative Arts at No 5, in a strong performance among more specialist institutions. (Arts London also ranks 36= in our peer review, well ahead of its league table position of 74.)

The University of the Arts — which is made up of some of London’s leading colleges of art including Central St Martin’s, Wimbledon, Camberwell and Chelsea — continues to be the heads’ pick for art and design, fashion and performance art.

Arts London’s success in our surveys of heads and academics is in contrast to its performance in the national student survey, where it achieves the lowest ranking in the UK, earning just a 62.2% score under our analysis of students’ returns. This disparity in the results between heads’ and peer review, and student satisfaction ratings is found in many other universities.

Source – The Daily Telegraph ranking 2008

Times Good University Guide 2009 British University Ranking

113 London South Bank 72% 1.3 25.2 822 193 72 48.4 56.3 246

Geographic Scope
The Foundation accepts applications from countries where it has branches, affiliates or other AKDN agencies which can help with processing applications and interviewing applicants. At present, these are Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Syria, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Mozambique, Madagascar, France, Portugal, UK, USA and Canada.

Selection Criteria
The main criteria for selecting award winners are: l) excellent academic records, 2) genuine financial need, 3) admission to a reputable institution of higher learning and 4) thoughtful and coherent educational and career plans. Candidates are also evaluated on their extra-curricular interests and achievements, potential to achieve their goals and likelihood to succeed in a foreign academic environment. Applicants are expected to have some years of work experience in their field of interest.

Age Limit
Preference is given to students under 30 years of age.

Financial Assistance
The Foundation assists students with tuition fees and living expenses only. The cost of travel is not included in AKF scholarships. Applicants are requested to make every effort to obtain funding from other sources as well, so that the amount requested from the Foundation can be reduced to a minimum. Preference is given to those who have been able to secure some funding from alternative sources.

Loan Conditions
Half of the scholarship amount is considered as a loan, which must be reimbursed with an annual service charge of 5%. A guarantor is required to co-sign the loan agreement. The payback period is five years, starting six months after the study period funded by the Aga Khan Foundation.

Application Procedures
The application procedures of AKF’s International Scholarship Programme are decentralised. Students may obtain application forms as of January 1st each year from AKF offices or Aga Khan Education Services / Boards in their countries of current residence. Completed applications should be returned to the agency from which the form was obtained, or to the address indicated on the front of the form. They should not be sent to Geneva. The deadline for submission of applications is March 31, although in certain countries internal deadlines may be earlier.

Applicants should be prepared to be interviewed by local Scholarship Committees about their financial situation, their academic performance, extra-curricular achievements and career plans. Interview reports are sent with the applications to Geneva for the final selection.

The annual Scholarship Selection Meeting takes place in late June or early July and the Aga Khan Foundation notifies all students of the outcome of their application shortly thereafter.

Source – AKF Page link

These bursaries, worth €20,000 (approx. Stg £14,800) each, will be in areas of study of particular relevance to business and industry, and will be co-sponsored by individual companies: Arthur Cox, Belfast City Airport, CSA Group, Dublin Port, Healy Group and RPS Group. They must be taken up for the academic year 2008-2009.

The bursaries are open to students currently registered at an Irish or Northern Irish university or Dublin IT (or who have graduated within the past five years) proposing to take up a place on a Master’s course which would require them to relocate to the other Irish jurisdiction. They are also open to currently registered students at an Irish or Northern Irish university or Dublin IT (or who have graduated within the past five years) wishing to follow a cross-border Master’s course involving some study in the other jurisdiction. For the first time, they are also open to Irish or Northern Irish-born students currently registered at (or who have graduated within the past five years from) a British university, and to students crossing the border to do the first year of a Ph.D.

Examples of areas of particular relevance to business are ICT, biotechnology, chemistry, engineering, environmental sciences, finance, logistics, food science, commercial law and business administration. Candidates should contact the Centre for Cross Border Studies (see below) for advice on other relevant subjects.

To be considered for this award, applicants will be required to write a short essay (1400-1500 words) explaining why they wish to study in the other Irish jurisdiction and how they believe their studies will enhance understanding of innovation and business development on the island of Ireland in their chosen subject.

The closing date for applications for this scholarship will be Friday 2nd May (5 pm). The winning applicants will be selected by a high-level panel comprising university presidents and business leaders, chaired by Dr Don Thornhill, Chairman, National Competitiveness Council (RoI) and former chairman, Higher Education Authority.

The successful applicants will be informed of the panel’s decision by early July. They will meet their sponsoring company between July and September to discuss a possible work placement or other collaboration to assist them in their studies. Students will be expected to engage seriously with their sponsoring firm.

Recipients of the bursaries will be required to furnish proof that they have been offered a place on a recognised Master’s course or Ph.D. degree in the other Irish jurisdiction or a crossborder Master’s course. The organisers reserve the right not to award the full number of bursaries if the standard of applications is insufficiently high.

Download the 2008 Application Form and the 2008 leaflet.

For further information contact
Patricia McAllister, Universities Ireland, The Centre for Cross Border Studies,
39 Abbey Street, Armagh BT61 7EB, Northern Ireland.
Tel: 028-37-511550 [048 from the Republic of Ireland] Email: p.mcallister@qub.ac.uk

See details of last years winners.

Award Type: Scholarship
Number of awards: Varies
Date Effective: September

LOCATION
Country: England, Scotland, Wales
Fields of Study: All Fields of Study

FINANCIAL DATA INFORMATION
Average Amount per Award: Varies
Award Includes: Unrestricted

APPLICATION INFORMATION
Deadline: Early April
Notification Date: Mid-May
Procedure: Interview in June.

ELIGIBILITY
Level of Study: Graduate, Doctorate
Nationality/Residency: Any
Other Criteria: You are eligible to apply for a BFWG Scholarship or Award, regardless of nationality, if your studies take place in Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales). You may also apply for a Scholarship or Award from BFWG for the final year of your formal study.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Funding sought usually greatly exceeds the amount of the award being offered. However, experience has shown that other awarding bodies with larger funds frequently make additional awards based on the BFWG earlier positive recommendation.

CONTACT INFORMATION BFWG Secretary
BFWG HQ
4 Mandeville Courtyard
142 Battersea Park Road
London, SW11 4NB
United Kingdom

phone: 020 7498 8037
email: awards@bfwg.org.uk

The top universities in the UK and Ireland

Source: THES – QS World University Rankings
© Quacquarelli Symonds 2004 – 2007
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