The Privy Council has granted Regent’s College London Taught Degree Awarding Powers (TDAP), giving it the right to accredit its own degrees from 1 September 2012. Regent’s College is one of the UK’s most respected private colleges, based at Regent’s Park, London. The College is organised around two faculties, ‘Business and Management’ and ‘Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences’, within which are seven specialist schools. The move is a major boost to current students, allowing all courses to be brought under a single set of academic regulations. The award follows a rigorous review over 18 months led by the QAA, which maintains standards in UK higher education.
Regent’s College is popular with international students, taking in more than 2,000 students from outside Europe. The College has a strong commitment to internationalism, teaching 10 languages which can be combined with business education. 30% of students study abroad as part of their course, with all students offered the chance to take up the opportunity. The College has also built strong links with industry, with 50% of students taking up internships as part of their degrees, and 90% of those seeking work finding graduate level employment within six months.
Its location and reputation make Regent’s College popular with international students from all over the world. Notable alumni occupy senior positions in banking commerce, manufacturing and trade. Many entrepreneurial students have started their own successful international companies after graduating from the College. The College has an outstanding alumni network all over the world and alumni contribute to the mentoring of current students and assisting them in finding work placements. It is the international ethos and perspective of the College that assures a high level of appropriate employment for its graduates.
With over 4,000 full-time students, the College is already the biggest undergraduate provider in the UK outside the state-funded system, taking a multi-disciplinary approach and offering a wide breadth of study. The College also has more than 600 postgraduate students in subjects ranging from banking and luxury brands through to international relations and psychotherapy.
Gaining degree awarding powers forms part of the College’s long-term vision to become the leading private non-profit University in Europe, which includes plans to apply for full University title in the UK. It has a long standing commitment to research, with three research centres, plans in place to invest £30 million in research over next 5 years, and to achieve Research Degree Awarding Powers (RDAP) by 2016.
Regent’s College is a registered charity with a mission to deliver high quality education. In addition to a comprehensive programme of competitive and merit based scholarships, the College offers financial assistance bursaries to assist financially disadvantaged students who show real potential to achieve.
Over the past 5 years, the College has invested £40 million in facilities and teaching to enable academics to spend more time with students in lectures, tutorials and individual feedback sessions. As a result, the student-staff ratio at Regent’s is 15:1 and students receive 20 hours of contact time a week, both metrics ahead of the national average. Tutorial style education in groups of 25 instead of large scale lectures is at the heart of the delivery system.
“The grant of degree powers to the College confirms our first class student experience, the commitment of staff, engagement of students and the success of alumni. Regent’s has been providing a rich learning experience for 25 years. Our breadth of study is rooted in the liberal arts tradition and we have core strengths in business, psychology, international relations, humanities and the arts. We offer an immersive international environment for around four and a half thousand students from 130 nationalities. The next step is to apply for University title to reflect properly the kind of institution that Regent’s has become and to better enable us to fulfil our driving charitable mission to serve education,” Professor Aldwyn Cooper, Principal of Regent’s College, said.
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These developments will help us to form even closer relationships with our partner universities around the world through which students may be able to carry out part of their studies in their home countries and then to graduate with dual validated awards.”
“From the assessment we have carried out of Regent’s College, we found that the College has effective leadership and management, and its arrangements for student support, both academic and personal, are well-regarded by students.
“Staff at the College are committed not only to teaching but also to providing good quality assessment feedback,” QAA’s Director of Reviews, Stephen Jackson, said.