More than our rank

We are very pleased to be one of the early adopters of INORMS More Than Our Rank initiative. Whilst we are proud of Loughborough's performance in many national league tables, we recognise that we have so much more to offer than is captured by these rankings.

A research-intensive institution

Loughborough is a research-intensive institution whose work advances knowledge, shapes public policy, improves lives, and enables businesses and industries to become more effective.

In the latest Research Excellence Framework (2021) over 90% of Loughborough’s research was recognised as being ‘world-leading’ or ‘internationally-excellent’.

The University has also won seven Queen’s Anniversary Prizes for our expertise in several areas of research, including high-value manufacturing; vehicle, road and driver safety; social policy; sports; and optical engineering.

We are also home to 15 Centres for Excellence including CREST, one of the most successful renewable energy research groups in the UK, and the National Centre for Combustion and Aerothermal Technology (NCCAT), which is the UK’s primary hub for research and development in low-emission aerospace gas turbine combustion technologies.

At Loughborough we highly prize our partnerships and have highly impactful and long-running collaborations with a range of sectors. For example, our research with Rolls Royce has led to a fuel burn saving in the Trent XWB aeroengine that equates to a reduction of 70 million tonnes of CO2 per year.

Our work with the Joseph Rowntree Foundation into the Minimum Income Standard helped establish The Real Living Wage and is shaping debates within the present cost of living crisis.

Loughborough University is also home to the Loughborough University Science and Enterprise Park (LUSEP), one of the biggest science parks in the UK and home to over 90 start-ups, growing businesses, global brands, and sports organisations.

The University prizes the employability of our students and offers all our undergraduate students a year-long work placement or overseas study.

For the last three years we have had more students on year-long industrial placements than any other university in the UK (HESA student data – actual no. of students on year-long placements from 2018/19 to 2020/21).

Our students also benefit from our sector-leading position in sport. Loughborough is the unbeaten British Universities and Colleges Sport (BUCS) champion for 41 years running, and in 2022 was the first university ever to achieve 7,000 points in the competition.

We offer unrivalled sporting opportunities for all including unparalleled support for our top athletes. In the last two Olympic and Paralympic competitions (Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020), Loughborough-associated athletes have won 79 medals, including 24 gold, 23 silver, and 22 bronze.

We are currently home to one of the largest multi-sport communities of Para athletes within a higher education institution in the UK and operate an integrated model whereby athletes with and without disabilities train alongside each other and benefit from integrated coaching and support services.

One thing that definitely cannot be recognised by any ranking, is the atmosphere and community spirit individuals experience at Loughborough.

Our diverse community consists of more than 19,000 students and over 3,500 staff from over 135 different countries and we strive to create a welcoming environment with equality and inclusion our priority.

We were recently awarded the Race Equality Charter Bronze Award, a national scheme that aims to improve the representation, progression, and success of minority ethnic staff and students, and since 2009 have held a bronze institutional Athena Swan Award, demonstrating our commitment to promoting gender equality.

The University seeks to embed sustainability in everything we do, cultivating socially responsible students, staff, alumni, and partners.

As a proud signatory of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, we are focused on addressing climate change and net zero through both our research and actions and recently launched our own journey to net zero for campus operations.

This work emphasises our commitment to two of the areas that are most prevalent in current society: sustainability and inclusivity. These areas form two of the three key themes from our new Creating Better Futures. Together strategy.

We are committed to making positive and permanent change that has real meaning and impact not only for our institution but also for the world around us.

Loughborough University is an institution that inspires and empower people to achieve extraordinary things and, as this short narrative indicates, is so much more than our rank.