The Royal Agricultural University (RAU) has been ranked in the top 10 universities in the UK for the best student experience in this year’s Sunday Times good university guide.
The university, which was also ranked the highest in Gloucestershire, climbed 14 places from its 2021 rating in the guide published annually by the Sunday Times.
RAU was ranked eighth in the list of the best universities for student experience and also came in at 53= for students’ evaluation of teaching quality.
Vice-chancellor Professor Peter McCaffery said: “We are delighted to have improved our ranking in this year’s Sunday times guide.”
“Earlier in the year, we achieved excellent results in the 2022 National Student Survey (NSS) with student satisfaction scores beating even those of the best-performing Russell Group universities,” he said.
“Students ranked us as the top university in the UK for being a learning community and fourth highest for overall student satisfaction across English universities.
“We were also in the top 10 for both academic support and organisation and management.
McCaffrey said that the university was commended on its research as “world-leading and internationally excellent” in the latest Research Excellence Framework (REF), which was published this summer.
He noted that the framework also ranked the RAU’s overall research at its highest ever level, which McCaffrey believes puts the university “firmly on the map as a world-leading specialist institution for sustainable farming and land management”.
“This ranking in the Sunday Times good university guide is the icing on the cake in what is already an excellent year,” he said.
The Sunday Times guide stated: “The Royal Agricultural University, famous for its scheduled Cotswolds setting, is branching out in a big way.”
The guide referenced the RAU’s recent partnership with the Uzbekistan Ministry of Agriculture to establish the International Agriculture University in Tashkent as well as the plans for the RAU rural innovation village.
The Royal Agricultural University
The Royal Agricultural University (RAU) has been a part of of agricultural education and a contributor to the land-based sector for 175 years.
Today, the RAU has more than 1,100 students studying agriculture, business, environment, equine science, farm management, food, real estate and rural land management.
The University, which is based in Cirencester, Gloucestershire, prides itself on its links with industry and all courses are designed to meet the demands of the employment market for land-based expertise, both in the UK and worldwide.
