The University of Surrey is a global university, renowned for the outstanding quality and impact of its graduates and research, as well as its collective contribution to society.
Since the University’s founding in the 1960s out of origins that can be traced back to 1894, its community has thrived on strong connections and collaborations on campus and with the wider world.
Today, we remain true to those goals and have an ambitious strategic agenda to be in the top 100 universities in the world, generating knowledge, educating change-makers, and influencing practice beyond our boundaries for a better society and planet.
Surrey is always looking for ways for its academics to engage with the public and show the relevance of research to the wider world. The Conversation will provide opportunities to do this.
Research with impact
Ground-breaking research at Surrey is bringing direct benefits to many spheres of life – helping industry to maintain its competitive edge and creating improvements in the areas of artificial intelligence, sustainability, health and life sciences, medicine, and space science.
The 2021 Research Excellence Framework reported that 89 per cent of our submitted research outputs are rated as world-leading or internationally excellent, while 94 per cent of our research is taking place in an environment conducive to producing world-leading or internationally excellent research in the future.
An international outlook
The University of Surrey is committed to being a world-leading, international university. Our goal is to work with international partners to tackle the global challenges we face. We actively explore opportunities for high-quality joint research with government, industry and charitable organisations.
As part of the University Global Partnership Network (UGPN), whose members include North Carolina State University and The University of São Paulo, we are engaged in a new approach to partnerships, focusing on deep engagement with a small number of institutions across the world.
The announcement of Alice Munro as 2013’s winner of the Nobel Prize for literature marks the high point in the 82-year old writer’s long career, but also a significant recognition for the form with which…
This weekend’s UKIP party conference – its 20th – was phenomenal and fantastic. Obviously, I’m using those words in their original senses of “it happened” and “it resembled something from a child’s story…
Ed Miliband must be pretty anxious about this Labour Party conference. The chances are the trade unionists in the audience will be more vociferous than they were at the TUC Congress in Bournemouth earlier…
Another day brings yet another “revelation” based on documents leaked by Edward Snowden. This time, Der Spiegel revealed the details of an NSA programme known as “follow the money”, through which the agency…
Well done Nick! Free school meals for infant school children may cost the government our well earned cash but this initiative could bring so many more benefits than just healthier lunches. There are three…
This September will be one that Ed Miliband will probably want to forget. He must be dreading the inevitable mauling he will get from the union delegates at the Labour Party Conference in Brighton at the…
As a policy analyst, I am naturally interested in the dynamics of domestic politics, the role of specific actors, institutions and communities. So I understand why so much talk in Britain yesterday and…
Chef Jamie Oliver was right to point the finger at ready meals with their high salt, sugar and fat content, misleading labels and hidden calories as a cause of obesity. He was also right to argue that…
Obesity is on the increase. And so are the numbers of theories all blaming different offenders. Culprit of the month is sugar, with researchers arguing that high levels of sugar in fizzy drinks, sweets…
As UN inspectors finally began their search for evidence of chemical weapons being used in Syria, on Wednesday Damascus apparently suffered the worst attack of this kind yet in this conflict. Some reports…
The British have long been notorious for their lack of ability in foreign languages but there are signs that, far from becoming more cosmopolitan as paid-up members of the European Union, they are getting…
Hard cases, it has been said, make bad law. They also prompt us to ask deeper questions about wider causes and longer term ethical consequences - and this is particularly pressing when it comes to assisted…
Barack Obama has so far held firm against a growing chorus demanding that the US should boycott the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi after Russia’s introduction of discriminatory laws banning gay “propaganda…
Stephen Fry’s viral open letter calling for “an absolute ban” on the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi over Russia’s controversial new anti-homosexuality laws was a clarion call for activists. But it should…
In 1859, from August 28 to September 2, we were given an important lesson about how vulnerable we are to the Sun’s power. The Carrington Event, named for the amateur astronomer who recorded it, Richard…
The past few weeks must have seemed like an eternity for Ed Miliband. What appeared to be a spat between Labour and Unite over vote-rigging has turned into a public argument over party funding and a redefinition…
A survey mapping Europe’s social, political and moral fabric has brought to attention issues of homophobia, sexism, and a collapse of trust in political systems. The [European Social Survey (ESS)](http://www.europeansocialsurvey.org/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_download&gid=966&Itemid=80…
There has been in a shift in the way the Conservative party leadership has talked about the European Union over the past fortnight. No longer is the talk of “giving the people a choice” about membership…
Hearing the words “airborne nanoparticles” for the first time, one would probably ask: just how tiny are they, where do they come from, and do we need to worry about them? These tiny particles between…
The government wants to improve children’s diets by banning packed lunches and barring children from leaving school at lunchtime to prevent them from buying unhealthy food. School lunches are healthier…