Lancaster in top group of UK universities for financial security

Lancaster University has had its credit rating raised to 'A' from 'A-' by Standard & Poor's Ratings Services.

The new rating reflects the university's underlying strengths especially its reputation for teaching and research, consistent overall student demand, and strong financial performance relative to its peers.

Lancaster’s financial security places the institution in the top quartile of UK universities. Over the past 10 years Lancaster’s income has grown by 7% per annum and over the period 2003 – 06 Lancaster returned average annual surpluses of 4.4%.

Standard&Poor’s raised Lancaster’s long-term issuer credit rating last month following the refinancing and extension of the University’s accommodation project.

Lancaster is one of only a few UK universities to have a public credit rating.

Other factors which help the credit rating include Lancaster’s solid reputation for teaching and research across a wide range of courses and academic infrastructure projects which have now been completed, most recently the third phase of the Lancaster Environment Centre, which increases the university's capacity to meet growing postgraduate demand.

Over the past ten years Lancaster has maintained an excellent research record and increased the volume of research grants, sustained its reputation for teaching excellence and made major impacts through its knowledge transfer activities against the backdrop of financial sustainability and significant investment into research, the estate and centres of excellence around environmental science, leadership, ICT and business outreach.

External teaching quality assessments by the Quality Assurance Agency have confirmed that Lancaster University has an excellent track record for the quality of its teaching. For the seventh time Lancaster University has a winner in the prestigious National Teaching Fellowship Scheme (NTFS) organised by the Higher Education Academy.

More than £200m has been invested into the estate, transforming the campus and creating academic centres of excellence, student facilities and teaching space and the largest student residences project in the UK which has already created 3385 new rooms. The latest phase of building will result in a further 963 ‘eco friendly’ rooms available in 2008.