1 DEPARTMENT OF MANAGEMENT SCIENCE Lecturer/Senior Lecturer in Forecasting Ref A026 THE DEPARTMENT BACKGROUND Established in 1964 and 1967 as the two Departments of Operational Research and Systems Engineering, the Departments were the first of their type in a British University and were amongst the earliest departments of the University of Lancaster. Set up under the direction of Professor Pat Rivett and Professor Gwilym Jenkins, the departments made their mark by their co-operative attitude to research and scholarship. Since then, the departments have enjoyed distinguished leadership from Professors Gwilym Jenkins, Mike Simpson, Alan Mercer, Peter Checkland, Robert Fildes, Brian Kingsman, Mike Pidd ,Richard Eglese and Linda Hendry. In 1993, the two departments merged to form the Department of Management Science. The new department brought together Professor Peter Checkland's work in soft systems methodology and its application in information systems, with the formal, quantitative modelling skills of the operational research staff. It is now an international centre of excellence for research and teaching in management science, covering the disciplines of Information Systems and Information Technology, Operations Management, and Operational Research,. It therefore embraces a rare combination of research skills, from the hard quantitative skills through to qualitative research approaches including action research. Since 2001, the Department has roughly doubled in size. It has also seen major developments in its focus. In particular, both the information systems, the mathematics of OR and supply chain management have been considerably strengthened. With a complement of over 30 research staff, the Department is now one of the largest of its kind in Europe. The Department has, along with Lancaster’s Department of Mathematics of Statistics, been awarded a grant of £4.5 Million by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) to establish the STOR-I Centre for Doctoral training (CDT) in Statistics and Operational Research. The Department is also a partner in the EPSRC-funded HighWire CDT to train doctoral students across IS, computing science and design. It has also had EPSRC funding to develop a national training course for doctoral researchers in OR (NATCOR ), and most recently, is leading a consortium of four universities (Lancaster, Nottingham, Cardiff and Southampton - LANCS for short) in an initiative to develop the foundations of OR. The latter is an investment of £13M (the LANCS Initiative ) which includes funding for new staff. Kevin Glazebrook directs both NATCOR and the LANCS Initiative. Full details of the department and its activities and publications may be found on its web pages, using the URL: http://www.lums.lancs.ac.uk/pages/Departments/ManSci/ A web page dedicated to the LANCS initiative may be found at http://www.lancs-initiative.ac.uk . ACADEMIC STAFF Professors David Brown MA Lancaster
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DEPARTMENT OF MANAGEMENT SCIENCE
Lecturer/Senior Lecturer in Forecasting Ref A026
THE DEPARTMENT
BACKGROUND
Established in 1964 and 1967 as the two Departments of Operational Research and Systems Engineering, the Departments were the first of their type in a British University and were amongst the earliest departments of the University of Lancaster. Set up under the direction of Professor Pat Rivett and Professor Gwilym Jenkins, the departments made their mark by their co-operative attitude to research and scholarship. Since then, the departments have enjoyed distinguished leadership from Professors Gwilym Jenkins, Mike Simpson, Alan Mercer, Peter Checkland, Robert Fildes, Brian Kingsman, Mike Pidd ,Richard Eglese and Linda Hendry.
In 1993, the two departments merged to form the Department of Management Science. The new department brought together Professor Peter Checkland's work in soft systems methodology and its application in information systems, with the formal, quantitative modelling skills of the operational research staff. It is now an international centre of excellence for research and teaching in management science, covering the disciplines of Information Systems and Information Technology, Operations Management, and Operational Research,. It therefore embraces a rare combination of research skills, from the hard quantitative skills through to qualitative research approaches including action research. Since 2001, the Department has roughly doubled in size. It has also seen major developments in its focus. In particular, both the information systems, the mathematics of OR and supply chain management have been considerably strengthened. With a complement of over 30 research staff, the Department is now one of the largest of its kind in Europe.
The Department has, along with Lancaster’s Department of Mathematics of Statistics, been awarded a grant of £4.5 Million by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) to establish the STOR-I Centre for Doctoral training (CDT) in Statistics and Operational Research. The Department is also a partner in the EPSRC-funded HighWire CDT to train doctoral students across IS, computing science and design. It has also had EPSRC funding to develop a national training course for doctoral researchers in OR (NATCOR), and most recently, is leading a consortium of four universities (Lancaster, Nottingham, Cardiff and Southampton - LANCS for short) in an initiative to develop the foundations of OR. The latter is an investment of £13M (the LANCS Initiative) which includes funding for new staff. Kevin Glazebrook directs both NATCOR and the LANCS Initiative.
Full details of the department and its activities and publications may be found on its web pages, using the URL: http://www.lums.lancs.ac.uk/pages/Departments/ManSci/ A web page dedicated to the LANCS initiative may be found at http://www.lancs-initiative.ac.uk.
Paul Devadoss Ph.D National University of Singapore
Paul Dunning-Lewis PhD Lancaster
Joern Meissner PhD Columbia University
Stephan Onggo PhD Singapore
Zhan Pang PhD Chinese University of Hong Kong
Paul Ralph PhD British Columbia - expt. May 2010
Didier Soopramanien PhD Lancaster
Patrick Stacey PhD Bath – joins September 2010
Mark Stevenson PhD Lancaster
Mark Westcombe BSc Lancaster
Research staff Daniel Black PhD Leeds
Chris Kirkbride PhD Newcastle-Upon-Tyne
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Nikolaos Kourentzes PhD Lancaster
Arne Strauss PhD Lancaster
Juan Ramon Trapero Arenas
PhD Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha
Marta Zorzini Ph.D Milano
Visiting Professors Robert Grubbstrom PhD Linköpping
Michael Lawrence PhD University of New South Wales
Edward Truch DBA Brunel
Jim Scholes PhD Lancaster
Visiting Lecturer Adam Hindle PhD Lancaster
Ruth Kowalczyk PhD Lancaster
Terry Compton is External Liaison Manager for the Department, working to further develop the Department’s links with industry, commerce and the public sector. Professor Linda Hendry is the current head of department.
RESEARCH
The Department has active research programmes in Information Management and Systems Theory, Operational Research, Operations Management. The department’s excellent research record was a major cause of the LUMS’ excellent performance in the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise in which 75% of the School’s research activity was assessed as world leading or internationally excellent in terms of originality, significance and rigour. On this measure Lancaster was 3rd equal in RAE 2008. This outstanding result follows three previous RAEs (1992, 1996, 2001) in which Lancaster was the only full-spectrum business school to receive the top rating on every occasion. PhD research is also a major feature of the department and full details of the PhD programme are given in the Department's web pages, which list information about some of our large number of PhD students. A particular strength is the training we offer our Ph.D students, which, in collaboration with other departments at Lancaster, has recently attracted two government grants to fund two Centres for Doctoral Training. Because we believe that the ultimate test of IS and management science is its impact on the real world, most staff co-operate, in various ways, with external organisations. The common research theme is that model-based approaches are used to explore practical management problems experienced by IS, OR specialists and operations managers. The increasing complexity of decision making in modern economic and social systems and the power of IT to collect and analyse larger amounts of data has increased the need for and use of these approaches. Seeking significant research funding is an important part of our activities. The LANCS Initiative is a £13 million investment devoted to strengthening the UK research base in foundational OR. The funding comes from EPSRC and the four universities (Lancaster,
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Nottingham, Cardiff and Southampton) which are collaborating in the initiative. LANCS is seeking to build the OR research base through (i) the recruitment to faculty positions of OR scientists of international standing, (ii) the provision of research training at doctoral and postdoctoral levels, and (iii) the establishment of a major national hub of leading edge research activity centred on the OR groups of the four participating universities. At Lancaster, Professor Stein W. Wallace and Dr Zhan Pang have both been appointed to academic positions in the Department of Management Science under the initiative while Dr Arne Strauss holds a postdoctoral RA position. Kevin Glazebrook directs LANCS while Richard Eglese and Adam Letchford lead the initiative's research effort in Green Logistics/Transport and Optimization respectively.
Centres for Doctoral Training (STOR-i and Highwire)
STOR-i is one of three recently announced Centres of Doctoral Training (CDT) in the mathematical sciences; the others are at Cambridge and Warwick. It is a collaboration between Lancaster's Department of Mathematics and Statistics and the Department of Management Science and represents a total investment of £7 million in leading edge doctoral training in OR and statistics. The core EPSRC funding will support 40 doctoral students, recruited in four annual cohorts from September 2010, on a four-year (1+3) programme. This is supplemented by investment from the university and from a wide range of industrial partners. STOR-i will pioneer an exciting new approach to doctoral training which seeks to develop outstanding scientists who have the skills required to see their research have real impact. The centre's work will focus on the interfaces between OR, statistics and industry. Our industrial partners have played a major role in the design of STOR-i's curriculum and will be extensively involved in all stages of the delivery of its programme. Most of the doctoral projects will have an industrial partner. Kevin Glazebrook chairs STOR-i's leadership team, while Mike Pidd, Chris Kirkbride and Stein W. Wallace serve on its Executive Committee. The centre will train at least 40 students over seven years, and will admit the first of these in October 2010.
HighWire is a world class, cross-disciplinary and industry-centric Doctoral Training Centre, with £5 million funded by the EPSRC, which places innovation at the heart of its curriculum and ethos. The centre goes beyond traditional multi-disciplinary approaches by seeking a creative fusion between three key disciplines, namely computer science, management and design. The emphasis is on producing a new breed of innovative people who understand and are able to advance the state of the art in technical, design and business innovation: innovative people prepared to work in challenging roles in organisations and ready to drive radical change in the digital economy. Mike Chiasson is one of the programme co-directors for the DTC, along with Gordon Blair from computing science, and Rachel Cooper and Leon Cruikshank from Design.
Operational Research:
Robert Fildes is the director of the Lancaster Centre for Forecasting. With Dr Sven Crone, Dr Didier Soopramanien and Dr Nikos Kourentzes and a large number of doctoral students it forms the largest academic research group in Europe working on wide variety of forecasting related problems from the technical to the organisational. A particular focus of our research has been concerned with the evaluation and utility of time series forecasting models, developing further the literature on ‘forecasting competitions’. As well as being heavily cited, this research has impacted on software design of commercial packages. Sven and Nikos’s interests are concerned with making non-linear Neural Network Methods more
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effective and applicable. Applications of the work have been in method selection in manufacturing with substantial industrial support. A related area of current research is in the design of forecasting support systems and the incorporation of expert judgment which building on the results of EPSRC research project (carried out with Paul Goodwin of U. Bath).
The Forecasting Centre also includes research on Marketing analytics and Modelling. The main research interests are in forecasting new product diffusion, developing effective CRM tools, retail forecasting and online marketing strategy.
Richard Eglese, Adam Letchford and Mike Wright all conduct research on solution techniques for discrete optimization problems. Richard Eglese concentrates mainly on heuristic methods for problems arising in logistics, such as vehicle routing and facility location problems. Richard is currently working on a Green Logistics research project funded by the EPSRC, and his 1990 paper on simulated annealing was voted one of the 30 most influential articles in OR by the European Association of OR Societies. Adam Letchford is a recognised authority on exact solution methods for optimization, most especially those which use cutting planes. He is a frequent contributor to the journal Mathematical Programming and has collaborated with many overseas researchers, for example in Aarhus, Bologna, Heidelberg and Valencia. Adam has been the recipient of an EPSRC advanced research fellowship (the first in OR in the UK) and an IBM faculty award. Mike Wright specialises in meta-heuristic approaches for highly constrained, multi-objective problems, such as timetabling, scheduling and packing problems. Mike’s work on sports scheduling, in particular, has been influential. Kevin Glazebrookwho works jointly with the Department of Mathematics and Statistics has led the Department to an increasing focus on research which sits at the interface between statistics, applied probability and OR. Kevin’s research ranges widely and has included contributions to stochastic scheduling, queueing control, sequential statistics and Bayes decision theory, the latter including applications to research planning, screening methods and optimal search. Within this work, a prime cohering theme has concerned the optimisation and control of complex stochastic systems and the role of state based calibrations of decision options within that. Current activity has the involvement of an RA and several PhD students, is EPSRC supported and includes work on inventory management, maintenance/reliability and dynamic resource allocation. Recent work has been the subject of papers in Operations Research, Management Science and Mathematics of Operations Research. Chris Kirkbride who has worked with Kevin on such problems is now an RCUK fellow. Stein W. Wallace has been appointed under the LANCS initiative. His focus is on decision-making under uncertainty, with publications relating to mathematical, algorithmic and modelling aspects of stochastic programming. He has been active in applications in energy (electricity as well as oil and gas production), logistics, fisheries management, finance, and telecommunications. His main activities now are related to analyzing what stochastics do to integer programs in order to understand what constitutes robustness and flexibility in planning. These interests complement those of Joern Meissner's, whose main research focus is the area of stochastic and dynamic decision-making, in particular applications to strategic pricing, revenue management, operations and supply chain management. He has published his work in journals such as Operations Research, Manufacturing & Service Operations Management (MSOM) and Naval Research Logistics. He frequently advises companies, ranging from Fortune 500 to emerging start-ups, on issues related to his expertise in production, logistics and pricing strategy.
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David Worthington has successfully concluded research into discrete time modelling of queuing systems to provide means of solving practical problems which are mathematically intractable. He has now started research on applying such approaches to queuing models of manufacturing systems, with a view to providing better estimates for planning times to use in practical production planning systems. Dave has also applied new approximations for time dependent queues to explore how the scheduling of key healthcare professionals can improve performance in relation to government targets.
Mike Pidd's research in computer simulation has led to novel ways to use the distributed power of the Internet for discrete simulation and to proposals for the hierarchical modelling of large systems. A second stream has focused on ways of improving the use of simulation methods, especially for use in business process modelling. During his recent ESRC AIM fellowship, Mike used simulation to assess the effects of target setting in National Health Service (NHS) trusts. Roger Brooks also contributes to simulation research and he is one of the few researchers investigating approaches for the important simulation task of conceptual modelling (deciding what to include in the model and at what level of detail). His current work also includes the methodology and applications of agent based simulation. Stephan Onggo recently joined the simulation research group. His research interest is in computing aspects of simulation modelling; in particular the development and application of high performance simulation.
A major issue facing organisations is the effective use of expertise in organisations. In work sponsored by the OR Society, John Ranyard and Robert Fildes examined the rapid changes taking place in OR practice and factors influencing its success. This work gave rise to a symposium and special issue of the Journal of the Operational Research Society. Graham Rand has written on the early history of the International Federation of O.R. Societies. The Lancaster research in this area has gained international prominence with keynote presentations at events such as the annual conference of the US OR and Management Science Society (INFORMS). Maurice Kirby (in Dept. Economics) is the UK’s historian of OR with its early years examined in: Operational Research in War and Peace: The British Experience from the 1930s to 1970, Imperial College Press, 2003.
Operations Management:
Linda Hendry has developed an international reputation for her work on the management and planning of make-to-order manufacturing companies, with particular emphasis on the marketing/production interface, order acceptance and release policies. This has been achieved via the application of and further development of Workload Control, an approach to production planning and control in which Lancaster is recognised internationally as one of the leading research centres. This approach to production planning, which has influenced many active researchers in German, Dutch, Italian, Greek and Portuguese universities and research institutes, has attracted international collaboration with the Universities of Groningen and Coimbra for the dissemination of this work. In particular, a new appointment, Mark Stevenson, has furthered this research through case study implementations. Linda Hendry has developed definitions of world class manufacturing for make-to-order (MTO) manufacturing and service companies with particular reference to SMEs. This work has been partly funded by BAE Systems.
David Worthington has continued his collaboration with the University’s Institute for Health Research on interdisciplinary research in health services management. The research has
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focused on information support for health care purchasing and management of radiology services has attracted financial support from the NHS. Jerry Busby’s interests are in the areas of analysing risk and its management and he is working with the Dean, Professor Sue Cox in the area of safety.
The application of quality management to particular countries and organisations is a continuing research interest for Graham Rand. Recent doctoral students have investigated quality practices in Malaysia and Mexico. Current research students are studying issues in the Insurance industry in Kenya, the UK and Greece. Linda Hendry is also working in this area, with a current doctoral student studying the Implementation of Six Sigma in the insurance industry.
LUMS has recently invested in several new appointments in the area of supply chain management (SCM) to build on the existing competence of staff in the Operations Management area. Martin Spring brings expertise in power relationships, servicization and links to marketing issues in the supply chain and Mark Stevenson has interests in supply chain flexibility. Most recently, Marta Zorzini joined the Department in September 2009 to look at the concept of offshoring during an economic downturn. Together with other staff members interested in modelling this makes the group one of the largest in the UK with interests encompassing all aspects of the supply chain and operations. Graham Rand has developed, in collaboration with colleagues at Renmin University, China, heuristics for ordering and stocking decisions under changing demand conditions. Robert Fildes continues to examine how uncertainty and forecasting errors impact such decisions in ERP and MRPII systems, showing those circumstances where improved forecasting is valuable. Two doctoral students currently research the effects of uncertainty on capacity planning and collaborative relationships across the supply chain. It is our aim to continue to develop this part of the department to make Lancaster a centre of international excellence in the area of Operations and Supply Chain Management, building on our expertise and the internationally renowned skills of the Management Science Department. The aim is to continue to create a vibrant and focussed research centre covering a wide range of empirical research methods (both qualitative and quantitative) in the area of SCM.
Martin Spring’s research on product-service integration and B2B services has recently been supported with the award of a prestigious AIM Services Fellowship. (AIM is the Advanced Institute of Management Research.) The empirical focus of the work is on the development of novel business models for firms in a variety of sectors, using a collaborative research approach based on close involvement with firm’s management teams. This reflects Martin’s associated concern with the development of more engaged qualitative research methods in operations and supply management.
Information Management and Systems:
The IS group continues to grow and broaden in scope. Through collaborative research, including joint PhD students, the group is linked with other LUMS research groups in operations management, innovation, strategy, computing and organisation and technology. Soft Systems Methodology (SSM), pioneered at Lancaster, continues to influence the field heavily. Peter Checkland and Sue Holwell’s book provides a seminal contribution to the practice of systems specification. In recent research, Mike Pidd examines the links between hard and soft OR/MS. This important work has resulted in publications on business process modelling and on modelling in OR. Mike’s book Tools For Thinking – Modelling in Management Science has provided wide exposure of the ideas. Substantial financial support
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from EPSRC has recently been secured for joint work between Mike Pidd and Lancaster’s Computing Department to look at the links between hard and soft approaches in supporting decision making in the management of large projects.
Application of SSM and other information management concepts in the field of E-commerce has been instigated by David Brown, in a research programme funded by Hewlett Packard and SAP. This research explores the issues faced by SME’s seeking to engage in E-commerce and has introduced new strategic business models, including the concepts of Trust platforms and the roles of intermediaries. David Brown is also working with Nigel Lockett on an EPSRC grant on the potential of E-Science and E-Management in the context of SMEs, and on an EU grant on E-business and innovation in China and Laos. This latter interdisciplinary work is linked directly to the Lancaster China Management Centre. Paul Dunning-Lewis is concerned with the development, design and evaluation of information systems and the use of SSM in information systems. Paul’s research on systems design forms a part of recently funded EPSRC e-scientific project (with Newcastle) on the practical use of grid technologies. Mike Chiasson’s work is focussed on key socio-technical issues and approaches to the design, development and implementation of information systems. Typically Mike’s approach has been as a participant observer – using action research - which has involved him directly in the design and implementation of information systems, for example in professional domains, including health care, where IS issues are complex. Mike is currently an Advanced Institute for Management Research (AIM) fellow, jointly funded by EPSRC and ESRC, and is working on IS based service-sector innovation in chronic health care. Paul Devadoss’s research interests are related to organizational issues in technology adoption, and the role of cultural interactions. In particular Paul has explored the use of IS in different institutional settings including E-government, crisis management, knowledge management, customer relationship management and ubiquitous computing.
TEACHING
The department offers undergraduate, postgraduate and post-experience courses and most staff are active in all three types of teaching.
Undergraduate
The Lancaster University degrees are based around major schemes of study, in which students concentrate their efforts, and which are accompanied by minor courses, that also count towards the degrees. Thus, students who major with the department might take minor courses such as accounting, marketing or industrial relations from within the Management School, or might choose topics from outside the School, such as computing, mathematics, statistics or some other suitable subject.
The department offers the following major schemes of study.
BSc in Business Computing & Information Systems (joint with Department of Computing)
BSc in Business Management Information Systems (joint with Department of Computing)
BSc in Management Science
BSc in Operations Management
BSc in Project Management
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BSc in Management Mathematics (joint with the Department of Mathematics and Statistics).
The course units that make up these degrees range from the highly technical (such as mathematical programming and computer simulation), through applications courses (such as quality management, and developing business information systems) to courses that emphasise personal transferable skills, (such as the project management courses, e-business). The units are taken by students from elsewhere in the Management School and the university as well as by the department's own major students. Postgraduate Since the 1960s, the department has offered the MSc in Operational Research, which has produced many hundreds of successful operational research practitioners who have followed excellent careers in the UK and around the world. The MSc programme is supported by the EPSRC to fund home and EU students. Its graduates are highly sought after by employers, large and small, many of whom visit the department for recruitment. In 2007 the Department has developed a new masters degree portfolio with four programmes:
MSc in Operational Research & Management Science,
MSc in Logistics & Supply Chain Management,
MSc in Management Science & Market Analysis and the
MSc in Project Management..
The MSc programmes have a strong applied focus and take high quality first degree graduates and hone their skills and knowledge to make them more useful. They are also intellectually challenging and very hard work! The courses include a project, usually with an external organisation, that runs for about 4 months from May each year. These projects are closely supervised by the academic staff who, with the students, find these one of the most rewarding parts of the MSc courses. At the time of writing a new masters course in Quantitative Finance is being developed in conjunction with the Departments of Accounting and Finance, Economics and Mathematics and Statistics.
In addition, the department's staff teach on The Management School programmes such as the full-time and part-time MBAs. The department is a principal participant in the MSc programs in E-Business & Innovation and the Information Technology Management and Organisational Change, which provides students with the leading theory and practice required for managing increasing complexity, driven by innovations in information and communication technologies (ICT). Both programmes are inventive and exploit the existing and emerging centres of excellence at Lancaster University. Importantly these multidisciplinary programmes offers the opportunity for team-based organisational projects in high quality host organisations. Overall, both programmes provide students with a highly desirable qualification, including organisational or research based experience in order to acquire the skills and experience required in knowledge based economies. The most recent innovation is the Department’s leading contribution to the EPSRC funded Doctoral Training Centre (DTC) on the New Economy, which will train practitioner-oriented doctoral students to conduct field research with UK companies. We are also involved in the development of IT Professional Development Programme through both “E-Skills UK” and
through the ITMOC programme. Both programmes are targeted at working, sponsored graduates and will be delivered through a blend of traditional and distance learning.
Post-experience
The department also offers a range of post-experience open courses under the Lancord name. Others are organised directly for specific organisations to meet their particular needs. Staff are paid over and above the normal salary scale for this work.
LANCASTER UNIVERSITY MANAGEMENT SCHOOL
The Department is one of six that make up the LUMS, the others being: Accounting & Finance, Organisation Work & Technology, Economics, Management Learning and the Management Development Division. It also includes a number of interdisciplinary centres such as the Institute for Entrepreneurship & Enterprise Development, the Centre for Strategic Management and the Lancaster Centre for Management in China LUMS is a faculty of the university and Professor Sue Cox is the Dean. Within the School, some teaching and research is conducted solely within a single department and some is organised on a School-wide basis.
There are the following School-wide taught programmes.
BBA (Bachelor of Business Administration)
European BBA
BSc in Business Studies
Full-time MBA
Consortial, part-time MBA
MSc in Management
In addition, there are many specialist masters programmes run through the departments. The Management Development Division organisations a wide variety of programmes for external organisations. LUMS, and therefore the Department of Management Science, is housed in a purpose designed building at the south end of the university campus. This incorporates the Graduate Management School, completed in 1995, as well as offices, teaching rooms, computer labs, common rooms and a restaurant and cafe. All staff have networked PCs. As well as their own desk-top computer, staff can access a local unix cluster, a local high performance cluster, plus other campus resources as well as regional computers at Manchester and beyond via the Internet. Working conditions are excellent with a new building completed in 2005 offering a particular attractive learning and social environment. The School is expanding further with a new major extension planned for completion in 2010. For more information about the Lancaster University Management School, please look at the School's web page: http://www.lums.lancs.ac.uk/
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LANCASTER UNIVERSITY
The university was founded in 1964 and it has established itself as one of the UK's top research-led institutions. Its main campus is situated on the southern outskirts of Lancaster and is set in 250 acres of landscaped parkland, close to the lively, friendly and historic city of Lancaster. The main campus is just 30 miles south of the beautiful Lake District and about the same distance from the Yorkshire Dales. It is about one hour's drive from Manchester International Airport and about 3 hours by train from London.
From a distance the University is identified by the brilliant white spires of the Chaplaincy Centre and by Bowland Tower, a 14-storey residence block. The Lancaster campus is designed around the "Spine" - a covered walkway which runs the length of the site, from north to south. The residences, teaching rooms, research laboratories, library, sports centre and shops extend along and either side of the Spine, which gives a large and safe pedestrian area, with all cars confined to the perimeter road. At the heart of the campus is Alexandra Square (named after the University's first Chancellor, HRH Princess Alexandra). This provides a focus for the life of the University - the central administration building (University House), the Students' Union offices, the Library, shops and banks are close to the Square. As well as providing accommodation and academic facilities, the campus has eating places, a newsagent, supermarket, bakery, bookshops, Students' Union shop, hairdresser, drugstore, gift shop, a Post Office, two banks, an NHS dental surgery, Health Centre and pharmacy. When our students wish to shop, eat or be entertained further afield, Lancaster city centre is only a l0-minute journey away on the regular bus service which leaves from the Underpass, directly underneath Alexandra Square.
Though its facilities are excellent, the university is, above all else, a place of academic enterprise in which its staff and students extend the boundaries of knowledge and develop their understanding of difficult issues. It has been outstandingly successful in research and teaching. It has been outstandingly successful in research and teaching. Lancaster University’s mission to excel in research at the highest international level has been given a recent boost with the results of the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise revealing that 92% of its research is recognised as world leading or internationally significant. Taking into account the high proportion of staff (90%) submitted to the RAE, Lancaster emerges in the top ten in the UK overall for research quality. The vast majority of its departments have been awarded an Excellent rating for their teaching.
THE ENVIRONS OF THE UNIVERSITY
The university is situated in a delightful part of the north west of England, close to the Lake District and Yorkshire Dales National Parks. The City of Lancaster encompasses three towns, Lancaster, Morecambe and Heysham, as well as a number of villages. The rural landscape is superb, with the Lakeland fells in full view across the expanse of Morecambe Bay. The River Lune runs from the Trough of Bowland, an area of outstanding natural beauty, past many of the villages, into Lancaster and thence to the sea. Two National Parks, the Lake District and the Yorkshire Dales, are within a few minutes’ drive.
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Lancaster is an historic city with a 12th Century castle dominating the hill above the River Lune. It offers excellent shopping, a cinema, theatre and good restaurants, with many well-preserved older buildings. Morecambe is a seaside resort, which is undergoing something of a renaissance thanks to money spent on its regeneration. There are breath-taking views of the Lakeland mountains from its promenade. Heysham is the site of an ancient abbey, now owned by the National Trust, and ferries from its harbour sail to the Isle of Man. The three towns and the villages have excellent schools and enjoy easy access to the M6 motorway, as well as to the main west coast railway line and Manchester International Airport. Housing is affordable and varied, ranging from country cottages through to town houses and flats. The City of Lancaster offers an excellent way of life for those who would rather avoid the noise and hassle of a major city, and yet who do not want to live in an isolated spot.
