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Appointment of Vice-Principal (Education)

Our education

Our values underpin our approach to education today – our mission depends on the freedom of our staff and students to pursue, create and share knowledge within the context of promoting an open, enquiring, educated and tolerant society.

Throughout our history, we’ve fostered social justice and improved lives through academic excellence. And we continue to live and breathe this spirit today, not because it’s simply ‘the right thing to do’ but for what it helps us achieve and the intellectual brilliance it delivers. 


We are committed to offering an excellent education to all our students. We are proud of the diversity of our student body, and retain a strong commitment to widening access to higher education and providing opportunities for all.

We are proud of our status as a Russell Group institution offering research-informed education while also being committed to widening access and giving opportunities to students from under-represented group. We undertake a range of strong outreach and recruitment activities, underpinned by our Access and Participation Plan, and offer an excellent bursary scheme.

Queen Mary co-sponsors the Drapers' Academy along with the Drapers’ Company and is the lead partner in St Paul's Way Trust School, a National Challenge Trust School in Tower Hamlets. Both schools provide opportunities in areas that have experienced high levels of unemployment and poor progression to further and higher education.

Since 2012, Queen Mary has been through a period of significant growth, with student numbers increasing at undergraduate and postgraduate level, and with expansion both at home and overseas. Between 2012/13 and 2018/19, the student population has increased from 15,800 to 21,670 for London-based programmes, with growth from around 2000 to over 4000 on our overseas programmes in China, the University of London in Paris and Malta.

We have developed a strong and diverse portfolio of taught programmes across our three faculties with a number of cross-faculty/interdisciplinary programmes. At the same time, we are building up a new suite of online postgraduate programmes, “Queen Mary Online”. We were also the first Russell Group institution to offer Degree Apprenticeships, and are developing a strategy to expand our portfolio of short Continuing Professional Development programmes.

This year, as our new institutional strategy takes shape, our focus in education has been on delivering excellence in four key areas:

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