Durham University Strategy 2010-2020

Excellence in Research and Education

Our five year university strategy 2005-10 has served us well. We are now building on this foundation, and Durham's ranking by the 2010 Good University Guide as the third best broad subject University in the UK with a strategy for the next decade and beyond.

The world is changing. There are now 138 Universities in the UK and education and research are increasingly global. Our strategy recognises this, setting out the type of University we intend to be - defining the 'Durham Difference' - and building on what is uniquely special about Durham University. Our priorities are simple - the highest levels of excellence in education and research, learning from and exemplifying the best in the world in research-led education for the most able students with the greatest potential, taught and mentored by some of the world's leading researchers at the forefront of their field. 

All institutions in the UK are expecting a rocky ride, given the state of public finances, but as I have said before, Durham outlasts not only Governments but political parties. Our current strengths, and a focus on excellence in everything we do, will serve us in good stead in weathering the downturn and emerging a stronger University, recognised world-wide as a University 'shaped by the past - creating the future'.

Professor Chris Higgins, Vice-Chancellor