Pioneering , innovative and creative are just a few words to describe our students in the Belfast School of Architecture and the Built Environment.
Our School is multi-disciplinary, ranging from civil and energy engineering through to real estate and environmental health to architecture.
We produce innovators, problem solvers and risk takers, but in order to affect change in the 21st century we have to know how to design, make and construct the built environment, but also how it is used.
Our school is located at the Belfast campus. We have invested in a range of fantastic workshops, excellent learning resource centres and studio places, and we keep our courses small so that students will develop as individuals.
Teaching
The School provides degree and postgraduate qualifications covering a full range of professions with our courses officially accredited, making our graduates more employable. The organisations that accredit our programmes include:
which provides our graduates with an edge in the built environment employment market, and often helps to fast-track career opportunities within the sector. We are a popular destination for those applying to study Architecture and the Built Environment, regularly receiving over 10% of all UK based applications for construction courses. In the past few years, we have redesigned our courses, putting our students at the forefront where they will work more closely with lecturers. Through research let teaching, we aim to create a better learning environment for all.
Study at Ulster
The Guardian ranked Civil Engineering in their Top Ten during 2016 and 2017, whilst The Sunday Times ranks Real Estate 3rd in the UK and our Building programme 5th. A high percentage of graduates from our programmes (85%), gain professional employment within a year of graduation and for some courses, this is 100%.
We are also very proud of our achievement in the REF2014, as we were ranked 7th in UK.
Employability
Employability and partnership working are at the core of all courses in the school. Our courses are informed by professional practice and academic research. The employability aspect of our courses is strengthened through the fact that the majority of our courses offer a work placement, which is integral to course design. In the latest published statistics, over 85% of our graduates are in professional employment, this figure is 100% for some courses.
Professional Accreditation
All of our courses are professionally accredited, (Safety Engineering and Disaster Management, as a new course has yet to be accredited) which provides our graduates with an edge in the built environment employment market, and often helps to fast-track career opportunities within the sector.
Core teaching competencies
The School has core teaching competencies at undergraduate level in the following areas:
Architecture; Architectural Technology and Management; Building & Quantity Surveying; Architectural, Civil, Construction, Energy & Safety Engineering; Environmental Health; Planning and Real Estate.
Student satisfaction
Ulster is a great place to study, but don't just take our word for it. In 2016 Environmental Health, Building Surveying and Quantity Surveying received 100% student satisfaction in the National Student Survey, while Civil Engineering achieve this in 2014 and again in 2017.
World Leading Research
We are very proud of our achievement in the REF2014, as we were =6th in the UK power rankings.
Our research is extremely important to us; at Ulster University we have five research centres:
- Centre for Sustainable Technologies (CST)
- Centre for Research on Property and Planning (RPP)
- Fire Safety Engineering Research & Technology Centre (FireSERT)
- Hydrogen Safety Engineering and Research (HySAFER)
- Studies Allied to Built Environment Research (SABER)
Our Research has been successful in attracting funding from a wide variety of sources such as EPSRC, European Union, Irish Government, charitable trusts, Invest NI, etc.
The research outputs range from government reports to periodic reports on house prices, from conference publications to highly cited journal publications.
Furthermore, the REF 2014 results for the Built Environment show that 100% of our impact and research was judged by an international panel to be world leading and internationally excellent.