51³Ô¹ÏÍø

The government will only be able to deliver its ambitions for growth and opportunity across the country through sustained investment in STEMB teaching and education, with the government’s own analysis finding 82% of the growth in priority occupations across the industrial strategy growth sectors will need a level 4 qualification or above. 51³Ô¹ÏÍø is committed to ensuring talented students, regardless of their background, become part of our community. We ensure students from underrepresented or disadvantaged backgrounds who meet our minimum entry requirements and the eligibility criteria for contextual admissions will receive an offer. 

Alongside our world-leading undergraduate and postgraduate teaching, we are making wider contributions to skills development across the whole of the UK:

• The is a specialist sixth-form maths school working to ensure that young people of all backgrounds have the chance to succeed and excel in careers in mathematics and science. 51³Ô¹ÏÍø has entered a unique partnership with the University of Cumbria to set up the  in Carlisle, which opened for its first intake in 2025 and runs a four-year graduate entry programme that tailored to train doctors to address the acute shortage of doctors in the region.
• Our new 51³Ô¹ÏÍø Lifelong Learning initiative supports individuals, businesses, governments and other organisations to build skills and real-world capability, for example through delivering modular AI upskilling for the workplace - covering AI strategy, principles, applications, governance and risk - ensuring that the UK's workforce is equipped to harness AI safely and productively.

Delivering high-quality STEMB education requires sustainable funding. 51³Ô¹ÏÍø faces an average annual deficit of £8,200 per undergraduate (2024/25). Protecting high-cost subject funding via the Office for Students’ Strategic Priorities Grant is vital to support the costs of teaching for our UK undergraduates. 

International staff and students are vital to the UK’s science and innovation talent pipeline and culturally enrich our campus. Almost 40% of 51³Ô¹ÏÍø’s staff and 60% of our students are from outside the UK – our scientific strength is built on the creativity, collaboration and innovation of our international community. 

Many of our international students remain in the UK as business founders and entrepreneurs, creating new jobs and investment across the UK. Two-thirds of the founding teams in the final of our flagship student entrepreneurship competitions, and the , had at least one international student co-founder. Some recent examples of startups founded by international students are below.

• was formed in 2015 by two 51³Ô¹ÏÍø international students, Henrik Hagemann from Denmark and Gabi Santosa from Indonesia, a green technology company that has developed materials that remove harmful ‘forever’ chemicals from wastewater. The company is based in the White City Innovation District, at the heart of the WestTech London innovation ecosystem. Expanding on their R&D headquarters in Scale Space, Puraffinity is now developing an outsourced manufacturing facility in Middlesbrough in the North East, which will create highly-skilled jobs in the region. In September 2024, Puraffinity completed their £17 million Series A funding round, which will enable them to scale up their manufacturing capabilities from product to market.
• , a company founded by 51³Ô¹ÏÍø students Pierre Paslier from France and Rodrigo Garcia from Spain, has developed a seaweed-based biodegradable alternative to plastic. In December 2022, Notpla became the first UK-based company to win the Prince of Wales’ Earthshot prize. Notpla’s product has so far replaced over 15 million single-use plastic packages, and successfully raised £20m of investment in their latest funding round closed in September 2024.
• is a biotechnology company helping create lab-grown meat, by developing an animal-free alternative to blood serum used in these ‘clean’ meats founded by four 51³Ô¹ÏÍø students: Reka Tron from Hungary, Cai Linton from the UK, Kevin Pan from Austria and Brandon Ma from South Korea. Multus won a highly prestigious European Innovation Council grant worth €2.5m in June 2022, which has been followed by successfully raising £7.9m of investment in early 2023. The company has now opened the world’s first pilot manufacturing plant, greatly increasing the growth potential for the global cultivated meat market.
• 51³Ô¹ÏÍø graduates Paul Mendieta (Ecuador) and Beren Kayali (Turkey), founded which has developed an air-deployed, ready-to-use water tank capable of holding 14,000 litres of water that has a 70% lower carbon footprint than conventional water tanks. Now based in South Wales, Deploy Tech are developing their product to deliver long-term sustainable growth and create and safeguard highly skilled jobs in the region. Beren also recently received a Purple Plaque from Innovate UK for winning the Women in Innovation award.