Royal Holloway and Bedford New College

About Royal Holloway, University of London

Royal Holloway, University of London (RHUL), formally incorporated as Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, is a publicresearch university and a constituent college of the federal University of London. It has three faculties, 20 academic departments and c. 9,265 undergraduate and postgraduate students from over 100 countries. The campus is just west of Egham, Surrey, within the Greater London Urban Area, although outside the M25 motorway and c. 19 miles (31 km) from the geographic centre of London.

The Egham campus was founded in 1879 by the Victorian entrepreneur and philanthropist Thomas Holloway. Royal Holloway College was officially opened in 1886 by Queen Victoria as an all-women college. It became a member of the University of London in 1900. In 1945, the college admitted male postgraduate students, and in 1965, around 100 of the first male undergraduates. In 1985, Royal Holloway merged with Bedford College (another former all-women's college in London, which was founded in 1849 and, like Royal Holloway, joined the University of London in 1900 and became fully co-educational in 1965). The merged college was named Royal Holloway and Bedford New College (RHBNC), this remaining the official registered name of the college by Act of Parliament. The campus is dominated by the Founder's Building, a Grade I listed red-brick building modelled on the Château de Chambord in the Loire Valley, France.

Royal Holloway is ranked 27th in the UK and 173rd in the world by the Times Higher Education World University Rankings for 2016–17. The guide has described Royal Holloway as "truly world class". Royal Holloway is ranked in 30th place in the world (9th in the UK) for 2016 in the category of "International Outlook", recognising its broader outlook as a global university. The rankings use three separate indicators to judge "international outlook"—proportion of international staff and students, and research in terms of papers that are co-authored with at least one international partner.

Royal Holloway is highly rated for the wide-reaching impact of its research, scoring 98.9 per cent for citations (first in the UK), further cementing Royal Holloway’s status as one of the world’s premier research institutions. It is particularly strong in arts and humanities. Admission into courses in English, Creative Writing, Psychology and Music are very competitive with a 9:1 applicants to place ratio. Royal Holloway's degree courses in Music, Information Security, Physics, International Relations, Earth Sciences, and Media Arts are also particularly strong, frequently ranking in the top 10 of national subject rankings. There are strong links and exchange programmes with leading institutions in the United States, Canada, and Hong Kong, notably Yale University, theUniversity of Toronto, and the University of Hong Kong. Royal Holloway was a member of the 1994 Group until 2013, when the group dissolved.

History of Royal Holloway, University of London

Royal Holloway College

Royal Holloway College, originally a women-only college, was founded by the Victorian entrepreneur Thomas Holloway in 1879 on the Mount Lee Estate in Egham. The founding of the college was brought about after Holloway, seeking to fulfil a philanthropic gesture, began a public debate through The Builder regarding 'How best to spend a quarter of a million or more', at which point his wife proposed to build a college especially for women. Holloway later increased his original sum of money to half a million, and today, the campus is still best known for its original 600-bed building, known as the Founder's Building, designed by William Henry Crossland and inspired by the Château de Chambord in the Loire Valley, France. Sir Nikolaus Pevsner called the original college building "the most ebullient Victorian building in the Home Counties", and noted that together with its sister building the Holloway Sanatorium, it represents "the summit of High Victorian design". The Founder's Building, which is now Grade I listed, was officially opened in 1886 by Queen Victoria, who allowed the use of "Royal" in the college's name. Founder's has been described byThe Times as "one of Britain’s most remarkable university buildings", largely due to its elaborate architecture, and according to The Sunday Times it "makes the college instantly recognisable". The college also has a Chapel, completed in 1886 as one of the last parts of the university to be finished. October 1887 saw the arrival of the first 28 students at Royal Holloway College. It later became a constituent of the University of London in 1900, as did Bedford College, which eventually merged with Royal Holloway College.

Merger of Royal Holloway College and Bedford College (1985)

Bedford College was founded by Elizabeth Jesser Reid in 1849 as a higher education college for the education of women. Reid leased a house at 47 Bedford Square in the Bloomsbury area of London, and opened the Ladies College in Bedford Square. The intention was to provide a liberal and non-sectarian education for women, something no other institution in the United Kingdom provided at the time. The college moved to 8 and 9 York Place (off Baker Street) in 1874, and then to Regent's Park in 1908. In 1900, the college became a constituent school of the University of London. Like RHC, following its membership of the University of London, in 1965, it allowed male undergraduates to study on its premises for the first time.

RHC and Bedford merged in 1985. The pressure for the merger was due to a lack of government funding for higher education, and the college was named Royal Holloway and Bedford New College (RHBNC), with an inauguration being held at the College Chapel in 1986 by Elizabeth II. The newest title remains the official registered name of the college, though this was changed for day-to-day use to "Royal Holloway, University of London" by the College Council in 1992.

Since the merger with Bedford College, Royal Holloway has entered into collaborative discussions with Brunel University and St George's, University of London. The latter project was cancelled in September 2009. Royal Holloway, St George's and Kingston University continue to work together in the field of health and social care teaching and research.

Collaborations

Royal Holloway has forged successful academic links with other universities in the Greater London area and beyond. In 2004 Royal Holloway became a member of the WestFocus Knowledge Exchange based at Kingston University along with Brunel, Roehampton, Thames Valley Universities, University of Westminster and St George's, University of London. The WestFocus initiative was created to forge business and enterprise links between its member institutions and small to medium-size business partners in south-east England. Royal Holloway's Department of Physics is a founding member of SEPnet, the south-east Physics Network, which supports collaboration between seven universities in south-east England on physics research, outreach and postgraduate teaching. The John Adams Institute for Accelerator Research (JAI) is a major collaboration in the field of particle physics between Royal Holloway and the University of Oxford. In the field of health and social care research, the SWan (South West London academic network) between Royal Holloway, St George's and Kingston University based at St George's in Tooting is another of Royal Holloway's major collaborative projects. In 2011, Pearson, the international education company, and RHC set up a partnership. Royal Holloway is responsible for validating Pearson's new business degree. Currently, Royal Holloway awards University of London degrees but has the power to validate its own degrees, which it has not exercised so far.

Accreditation

Institutional Accreditation or Recognition - Privy Council

Year of first Accreditation - 1908

Rankings

• Royal Holloway was ranked 173rd in the world and 27th overall in the UK in the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings 2016/17.
• The 25th edition of The World List of Universities and Other Institutions of Higher Education lists over 16,000 higher education institutions globally. This places Royal Holloway within the top one per cent of all higher education institutes in the world.
• Royal Holloway sits within the top 25 per cent of universities in the UK for research rated ‘world-leading’ or ‘internationally excellent' by the Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2014.
• The National Student Survey (NSS) 2016 revealed that Royal Holloway, with a rating of 89 per cent, is once again top among the University of London institutions and the larger London based universities for overall student satisfaction. 

Student life at Royal Holloway, University of London

Students' Union

The Royal Holloway Students' Union (SURHUL) actively represents and provides a service for the needs and interests of all students studying at Royal Holloway. It is claimed to have "a reputation as one of the best unions in the London area", in words of The Independent.[19] The Students' Union provides much of the on-campus entertainment, organising and sponsoring the sport clubs and special-interest societies, on top of providing welfare advice to students through the Student Advice Centre.

The Students’ Union runs general meetings, which provide an opportunity to discuss issues, make student announcements and engage in lively debate. Whilst representatives are elected to sit on and run a General Meeting, any student is eligible to attend, vote and have their say. The direction and development of the Students’ Union is the responsibility of the Trustee Board, which is made up of two student trustees, one College trustee, three external trustees and four student Sabbatical Officers.

The Sabbatical Officers are elected for one year in office and work full-time either during or after completing their degree. These Officers are assisted by 13 elected Executive Officers who work as unpaid volunteers alongside their studies.

The Union also employs more than 20 permanent members of staff who oversee the administrative and commercial activities of the organisation. The main Union building on campus includes a large function hall, three bars, the Rialto food outlet and its administrative offices. Elsewhere on campus, the Union operates Medicine – a bar and games venue designed by the creators of the Ministry of Sound – and the campus pub The Stumble Inn.

Student media

The Orbital is the Royal Holloway campus magazine and published by the Students' Union, covering subjects from higher education news, opinion, arts, and reviews. The original official Royal Holloway student publication was in the format of a newspaper called The Egham Sun, but this was replaced with the magazine edition in the early 1990s. The magazine is regularly published in print and online.

The Students' Union is also responsible for the student and community radio station Insanity Radio, established in 1998. Available locally on 103.2 FM and 1287 kHz, Insanity broadcasts 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with live presenters in the studio from 8am-2am daily in term time and some holiday periods. The station is also available worldwide through the internet. The station takes its name from the Holloway Sanitorium, founded by Thomas Holloway, along with the College that became Royal Holloway. Insanity prides itself on being non-commercial and for serving the student body and local community with chart and chat, new music, news and specialist music shows. The station has twice won the Silver Award for Best Student Radio Station at BBC Radio 1's Student Radio Awards. The station was awarded a community radio station licence in early 2010, and on 7 March moved to FM, broadcasting on 103.2 MHz.

In March 2013, Royal Holloway's unique broadcasting and recording brand RhubarbTV relaunched. Run by students, for students, rhubarbTV is Royal Holloway's student television station. It offers a brand new student media experience across the campus. The station allows students to engage with numerous aspects of television production: from producing to writing, directing to acting, or filming to editing: there are ample opportunities for students to get involved, whether they want to hone in on existing skills or develop new ones they never knew they had. In June 2014, rhubarbTV was named the Royal Holloway Media Outlet of the Year at the first-ever Student Media Awards.

The Founder is the independent student newspaper. Founded in 2006, 4,000 free copies are printed and distributed fortnightly across campus and locally. It gets no financial support from the college or SURHUL and advertising revenue acquired by the students on the editorial board pays for printing. This means that editorial and financial responsibility is entirely that of students. In December 2010 the newspaper became the first student publication in the UK to launch an iPhone app.

At the 2007 Guardian Student Media Awards, Christian Anthony was shortlisted for the Student critic of the year Award. At the inaugural 2011 London Student Journalism Awards Kate Brook, the newspaper's Features Editor, was recognised with the Best Feature Writer award.

Halls of residence

Most halls are part of the main campus, and initially allocated to first year students who firmly accept a conditional or unconditional offer. Accommodation prices at the university can vary, ranging from £85-£163 per week. Halls are either self-catered or catered, with students living in the latter entitled to a 50 per cent discount off the normal price of the majority of food sold in the dining halls. Around 2,900 students live in halls of residence.

The Founder's Building houses 493 students in original Victorian rooms and converted space, which underwent refurbishment in 2012. Meals for catered students are provided in Founder's dining hall.

Also on campus, Gowar and Wedderburn, a construction of 570 study bedrooms in two new blocks opened in September 2004. These halls were also used as accommodation for rowers at the 2012 Olympic Games.

Similar accommodation blocks, named Butler, Tuke and Williamson, were completed in September 2007 to replace the ageing Athlone, Cameron and Williamson Halls. Of the waste created by the demolition of Athlone, Cameron and Williamson, 98 per cent was recycled. All five of these new halls were named after former principals and have been designed to be environmentally friendly, accomplished by sedum-planted roofs that change colour by season, as well as being designed to improve insulation. In an assessment used to distinguish the environmental performance of buildings, BREEMAN rated the Butler, Tuke and Williamson halls as "very good", as their construction was designed to reduce heat loss.

Kingswood I and II are 1-mile (1.6 km) away. These halls hold over 400 students, and a free bus service operates to the campus. Other accommodation includes Highfield Court (125 students), Penrose Court (200 students), Reid Hall (287 students) and Runnymede Hall (441 students), which was opened by HRH The Princess Royal in 1992.

10 reasons international students choose to study at Royal Holloway

1. The UK higher education system:

Degree programmes in the UK are intensive and specialised, meaning that they are typically shorter and more cost effective than equivalent degree programmes on offer in many other countries.  Furthermore, living and studying in an English-speaking environment will allow you to improve your fluency in  English and so gain one of the most important skills for future success in the international job market.

2. University of London affiliation:

Upon graduating from Royal Holloway you will be awarded aUniversity of London (UoL) degree: a qualification that is recognised the world over, and which will lead to first rate career opportunities.  Furthermore, as a student at a University of London college, you will have access to the full range of shared central London-based facilities that the UoL offers to all of its member colleges.  These include world class library facilities, a professional careers service and a thriving UoL Students’ Union building which holds regular events, providing over 120,000 UoL students from its 19 different colleges the opportunity to mix and get to know each other in a relaxed and informal environment.

3. Campus environment:

The College is situated within an intimate, friendly and supportive campus environment, featuring world class facilities within rural surrounds thanks to a £100 million investment programme delivered at the college between 2002 and 2008.  At its centre, the campus’ focal point is the stunning Founder’s building, which is modelled on the Château de Chambord of the Loire Valley, France.

4. Research excellence:

The college is ranked in the top 20 universities for research in the UK, so you can be confident that your studies will be led in departments staffed by academics who are nationally and internationally recognised within their fields of research; and that furthermore as a postgraduate research student, you will be given the help and support you need to ensure a quality output in the form of your final dissertation. 

5. Teaching excellence:

The College offers excellent teaching (as confirmed by the UK Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education) across its Arts, Science and History and Social Science faculties by members of staff who are committed to delivering an enriching and rewarding learning experience. 

6. Professional career guidance:

Studying at Royal Holloway gives you on-site access to the University of London’s centralCareers Service; a service that has been designed to help you to define and achieve your career goals.  The Careers Service has links with a range of national and international companies, and employers visit our campus regularly to provide advice to students and promote employment opportunities.

7. A vibrant and diverse community:

The College community consists of over 7,700 students who come to study in the UK from over 120 different countries.  You will probably never have a better opportunity to interact with such a diverse range of people.

8. A thriving social and cultural scene:

The College offers many opportunities throughout the course of the academic year to either contribute towards or just appreciate the many social cultural activities on offer; in particular theStudents’ Union offers a full and varied calendar of events.  Also, for any aspiring journalists out there, there is the opportunity to become involved with the College’s award winning student runradio station and magazine. 

9. International student support:

Studying away from your home country can be a daunting prospect at first, so in order to ensure that students get the most out of their studies at Royal Holloway, we have implemented a comprehensive international student support system. This ranges from specialist academic and English language support, to health and counselling services. We have a dedicated team of International Student Advisors, and each student also has a Personal Advisor within their academic department.

10. Location:

The college campus is situated within the beautiful, peaceful area of rural Surrey, whilst still being only 40 minutes by train from the centre of London, one of the most exciting cities in the world.  Studying and living on campus at Royal Holloway therefore means that you can get the best of both worlds.

Furthermore, in addition to its proximity to London, the local area around the College campus also has much to offer with attractions such as Windsor Castle (the Official Residence of the Queen of England) and Runnymede (the historical site of the signing of the Magna Carta) right on your doorstep.