University of Southampton

The University of Southampton is a British university situated just north of the city of Southampton, on the south-coast of the United Kingdom. The university has a world-wide reputation for high-quality research, and is a member of the Russell Group of research-led British universities. According to the Sunday Times newspaper league table, Southampton is perennially in the top ten for research (its primary focus), while in 2002 it came 11th overall (out of around 200 British institutions). Southampton is a member of the Worldwide Universities Network, and has close links with MIT in the United States.

Related Topics:
University - Southampton - United Kingdom - Russell Group - British universities - Sunday Times - League table - 2002 - MIT - United States

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The university's main buildings are situated on a large site on the Highfield Campus, but the university has other campuses elsewhere around the city: at Bolderwood (biological sciences), New College (formerly LaSalle Union College), Southampton General Hospital and on the waterfront at the National Oceanography Centre. It also has a campus in Winchester which is the home of the university's fine & performing arts departments (formerly the independent institution Winchester School of Art, but now an integral part of the university).

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Highfield Campus - Bolderwood - Southampton General Hospital - National Oceanography Centre - Winchester School of Art

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Southampton is probably best known as an engineering, science and social science university. In the most recent RAE assessment (2001), it has the only engineering faculty in the country to receive the highest rating (5*) across all disciplines. According to the Times Higher Educational Supplement, Southampton has the second largest research income among British universities for the physical sciences and mathematics, and the third largest research income for engineering and technology. The university is also strong in other disciplines - in archaeology, the first three professors produced by Southampton later became heads of archaeology at Oxford, Cambridge and University College London. The music department is also renowned, benefiting from the Turner Sims concert hall, situated in the middle of the university's Highfield campus. In addition, the university is home to the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton (formerly Southampton Oceanography Centre), a leading research centre for oceanography. The university places great emphasis on inter-disciplinary cooperation and on collaboration with industry. This is most evident in the University's Centre for Enterprise and Innovation, which is jointly run by Faculty of Engineering and the School of Management. This focus has recently been augmented by the establishment of a separate Institiute for Entrepreneurship.

Related Topics:
2001 - Engineering - Times Higher Educational Supplement - Physical science - Mathematics - Technology - Archaeology - Oxford - Cambridge - University College London - National Oceanography Centre, Southampton - Oceanography

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The inventor of the World Wide Web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, is a Professor of Computer Science at the University of Southampton. The University's Professor David Payne FRS CBE invented the optical amplifier, without which fibre optic cables would not work. Professor Payne is also Chairman of Photonics, a commercial company which is a spin-off of this research. Former head of the Department of Electronics and Computer Science, Professor Tony Hey CBE, is now Corporate Vice-President of Microsoft UK. Another Southampton Professor, Martin Fleischmann, Professor of Electrochemistry, came to notoriety in 1989 when, along with a research collaborator, he claimed to have produced cold fusion in a laboratory. Subsequent researchers were unable to substantiate his claims.

Related Topics:
World Wide Web - Tim Berners-Lee - Computer Science - David Payne - FRS - CBE - Photonics - Tony Hey - Microsoft - Martin Fleischmann - Cold fusion

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