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Former names | Charlotte Mason College, St Martin's College, Cumbria Institute of the Arts |
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| Motto | Aspiremus efficiamus |
Motto in English | Let us aspire and achieve |
| Type | Public |
| Established | 2007 (2007) |
| Budget | £63.3m[1] |
| Chancellor | Stephen Cottrell,Archbishop of York[2] |
| Vice-Chancellor | Julie Mennell |
| Students | 9,450 (2023/24)[3] |
| Undergraduates | 6,785 (2023/24)[3] |
| Postgraduates | 2,665 (2023/24)[3] |
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| Affiliations | Cathedrals Group Million+ Universities UK |
| Website | cumbria |
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TheUniversity of Cumbria is apublic university inCumbria, with its headquarters inCarlisle[4][5] and other major campuses inLancaster,Ambleside, andLondon. It has roots extending back to the Society for the Encouragement of Fine Arts, established in 1822, and the teacher training college established byCharlotte Mason in the 1890s. It opened its doors in 2007 as a university.[6][7]
The University of Cumbria was formed from the merger ofSt Martin's College, Lancaster, theCumbria Institute of the Arts (formerly Cumbria College of Art & Design), and theCumbrian campuses of theUniversity of Central Lancashire on 1 August 2007,[5][8][9] which ran degree programmes accredited byLancaster University and theUniversity of Central Lancashire. To facilitate the change, St Martin's College applied for independent degree-awarding powers in March 2005, and was successful in July 2006, after nine months of scrutiny by theQuality Assurance Agency.[10] Official university status, albeit without a royal charter, was granted by thePrivy Council in January 2007. Authority to award research degrees was subsequently granted by the Privy Council in 2019.[11][12]
ThePears Cumbria School of Medicine is a cooperative initiative withImperial College London, supported by thePears Foundation. It will take its first intake of medical students in 2025, and aims to train doctors for Cumbria. Students will study in Carlisle and be awarded their medical degrees by Imperial College.[13][14][12]
The university is based upon the findings of a report bySir Martin Harris.[8] This plan envisaged a university based upon a "distributed learning network", so that teaching will take place both at the university's main campuses, and at colleges offurther education around thecounty. This solved a problem for remote areas that did not previously have direct access tohigher education.
The headquarters of the university are inCarlisle. Its other major campuses are atAmbleside,Lancaster (formerly St Martin's College) and it has classrooms and open workspace in the "Energus" facility in Blackwood Road, Lillyhall,Workington. The university previously also had sites inPenrith (formerly University of Central Lancashire in Cumbria and before thatNewton Rigg Agricultural College) andLondon. Newton Rigg has since been transferred toAskham Bryan College and the Tower Hamlets provision has moved to East India Dock Road.Furness College inBarrow-in-Furness has developed close links with the university and they share some facilities.
The site started its life as The Carlisle Union Workhouse in 1863.[15] After theSecond World War, it became theCarlisle City General Hospital and served as such until it closed in 1999.[16]
The Brampton Road campus was formerly the Cumbria Institute of the Arts, founded in October 1822 as the "Society for the Encouragement of the Arts", later Carlisle Art College and College of Art and Design.
The Brampton Road campus is now home to the university's Institute of the Arts, with over 1000 full-time arts students.
The Ambleside campus occupies the site of Charlotte Mason College, established after Mason's death in 1923, continuing the work of the "House of Education" she founded there in 1891. It operated independently as a teacher training college until the 1990s when it moved between Cumbria education authority, Lancaster University, and St Martin's College.[17]
On 1 December 2009, it was announced that the Ambleside campus would be "mothballed" at the end of July 2010, and would no longer take new undergraduate students. This was in spite of support pledged fromTim Farron MP for the campus and its students. A protest was held on 1 December 2009 by the student body.[5] The timing of the closure had led many to believe that the decision had been made some time ago.[18][19][20]
In July 2011, the university announced a plan to reopen the campus and increase student numbers at the Ambleside campus and this began in 2014.[21] Ambleside continues to host courses in outdoor studies, forestry, conservation business, leadership and sustainability.
The site was formerlyBowerham Barracks, the depot of theKing's Own Royal Regiment (Lancaster). In 1962 it became a teaching college.[22]
From the start, the college planned to teach degrees as well as Certificates of Education and pioneered the four year BA Hons with qualified teacher status. By 1966 the college was teaching PGCE students.
The college then developed courses in nursing and later radiography, occupational health, social work and continuing professional development courses for health professionals. Strong relationships were forged with NHS trust training departments.
The college developed further courses in humanities, arts and sport, and a mini building boom ensued in the late 1990s with the development of the Sports Centre, Humanities building, Hugh Pollard Lecture Theatre, as well as student accommodation.
Newton Rigg College was an agricultural college nearPenrith, Cumbria, England, founded in 1896 as the Cumberland and Westmorland Farm School.[23] After joining the University of Cumbria, degree programmes including Forestry, Conservation, Outdoor Studies, Outdoor Leadership and Applied Sciences were taught there.[24] The National School of Forestry was set up here in the 1960s and has a long history of educating forest managers, which continues to the present day. Programmes moved to their new home in Ambleside in 2013 (Outdoors programmes) and 2014 (Forestry, Conservation, and Applied Sciences).
Further education provision and assets of the Newton Rigg campus were transferred toAskham Bryan College in March 2011, but the university continued to run higher education courses there for three years.[25]
The university has space at the "Energus" facility in Blackwood Road, Lillyhall,Workington. The facility opened in June 2009 and was the university's first presence in West Cumbria.[26]
The current vice-chancellor isJulie Mennell, formerlydeputy vice-chancellor (development) ofUniversity of Sunderland.[27]
Previousvice-chancellors have included;
At one stage the university had debts totalling £13,000,000 and in March 2010, it received a cash advance fromHEFCE to enable it to pay staff.[32][33] It has since pulled itself out of debt and is profitable.[34]
In 2022 the Manchester Employment Tribunal found the university to have unfairly dismissed and discriminated against a pregnant employee during the COVID-19 pandemic. The HR department was described by the tribunal as disorganised and described the failure to conduct a consultation during the redundancy situation as a wholesale failure.[35] The employee was awarded £130,000 compensation.[36]
| National rankings | |
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| Complete (2026)[37] | 123 |
| Guardian (2026)[38] | 116 |
| Times / Sunday Times (2026)[39] | 128 |
The university has five specialist departmental areas that offer a range of flexible, multidisciplinary courses:
The University of Cumbria provides education in Medical Imaging, Sports Development, Arts, Law, Education, Leadership and Economic Development, Conservation, Forestry, and the Uplands, and Mental Health and Wellbeing, among other subject areas.[40]
The majority of University of Cumbria campuses have sports teams which represent them in theBritish Universities and Colleges Sport leagues. Teams include: Cricket, Netball, Football, Hockey, Rugby League, Rugby Union, Badminton and Pool. All teams play their home games on Wednesdays afternoons at various University's sport venues.
54°53′27″N2°55′20″W / 54.89083°N 2.92222°W /54.89083; -2.92222
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