We think a university should be about empowering people to explore what they don’t know; through passionate, dedicated teaching and innovative, world-changing research. By embracing the fact that we’re all coming at it from a slightly different place, and that every journey is personal, we’ve managed to achieve some remarkable results in our time.
We believe that the best universities are not just the privilege of elites. We’re proof that you can stand alongside the best and open up the competition for everyone.
Some universities consider their primary purpose to be high quality research, others concentrate on excellent teaching. At Leicester we think that the two are not only complementary, they’re inseparable. We believe that teaching is more inspirational when delivered by passionate scholars engaged in world-changing research – and that research is stronger when delivered in an academic community that includes students.
With these ideas at heart, Leicester is re-framing the values that govern academia and re-defining what a university needs to be in the 21st century. We are constantly finding new ways of being a leading university.
We are the only university to win six consecutive Times Higher Awards. The Times Higher Education applauded Leicester’s very different approach, describing us as “elite without being elitist”.
Clothes manufacturing in the UK has seen a striking revival since 2007. Not only have new business models come onto the scene, particularly with the growth of online retailers, their actual manufacture…
On January 31, Harith al-Nadhari, a senior al-Qaeda figure who praised the Charlie Hebdo attackers, was killed by a US drone strike. This is the first drone strike in Yemen for a number of weeks, and it…
After 35 years of consistently strict government control over family size, China’s so-called “one child policy” seems to be winding down – at least for some. Recent headlines quote the authorities in Shanghai…
The seas are vast. And they claim vessels in significant numbers. The yachts Cheeki Rafiki, Niña, Munetra, Tenacious are just some of the more high-profile names on a list of lost or capsized vessels which…
Police in England and Wales have been told to review nearly 2,000 cases of alleged corruption after Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary found that no action had been taken in two-thirds of investigations…
Human beings don’t merely inhabit the world. They alter it, on an increasingly epic scale. It is said that we now live in a new epoch, the Anthropocene, in which geology and climate are controlled as much…
Winston Churchill is remembered as a highly successful politician, but his record at the ballot box was far more chequered than many might think. Churchill, in fact, failed to win a seat in five of the…
If you’ve been following the news it might seem like there’s been a lot of air crashes recently. It might seem that flying has become a risky business. In a society with a free press and a great number…
As the last remaining protesters were being cleared from Hong Kong’s streets, many Westerners lamented the silencing of what they saw as China’s only pro-democracy voice. To them, the umbrella movement…
One of the oldest assumptions about organising comes directly from the angels. In the 5th century, the mysterious theologian Pseudo-Dionysius wrote the definitive book on angelic hierarchies, Ecclesiastical…
We’ve learnt this year that if an MP defects – particularly to UKIP – people pay attention. With their high-profile defections causing two by-elections, Douglas Carswell and Mark Reckless sparked both…
When my good friend and long-term collaborator Sam Warren was given a pile of women’s magazines from the 1930s by her grandmother Jane Frampton, we found among them 11 Christmas issues of Good Needlework…
The traditional picture of Vikings is one of boatloads of hairy men pillaging their way along the coasts of Europe. Though true to some degree, this stereotype has more recently been tempered with the…
Italian politics has been rocked by a scandal in the country’s capital. Politicians stand accused of working within a pervasive and wide-reaching criminal network dubbed “Mafia Capitale” to skim money…
The teachers of tomorrow should be eager to prepare for “your future, their future”, according to the National College for Teaching and Leadership’s new teacher-training recruitment campaign. Sadly they…
Recruitment of student teachers to begin training in 2015 is well underway, and the government hopes it will lead to well over 30,000 new teachers entering the profession in England. But data from the…
The next James Bond film – the 24th in the series that began with Dr No in 1962 – is to be called Spectre. Although the plot remains a closely-guarded secret, the name reveals more than it lets on. Spectre…
The office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has announced a major campaign, #ibelong, to eliminate statelessness within a decade. A noble aim indeed – but before statelessness can be ended…
Our obsession with women’s weight and attractiveness manifests in different ways in the media, including being sold images that are far removed from reality and often impossible to achieve, or focusing…