UCL’s teaching successes highlighted in study of national rankings

UCL has been singled out for key features of its teaching including its focus on student employability, curriculum innovations and humility in an analysis of the recent nationwide assessment of universities' teaching quality. The research, by the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI), focused on 12 universities which improved their ratings after submitting qualitative information and data in 15-page reports. As a result, UCL won silver in the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) this summer. UCL's Connected Curriculum which integrates research and education in courses for undergraduates was highlighted in the analysis for providing a "unique" and "memorable" narrative in the university's written submission. The HEPI report, entitled Going for Gold: Lessons from the TEF provider submissions, noted that the TEF panel credited the university for its "introduction of innovations to ensure stretch in the curriculum." Connected Curriculum was mentioned 18 times in UCL's qualitative submission to the TEF panel. UCL also used its submission to describe its work to boost students' employability including its Skills4Work programme and Enterprise Boot Camp - a move that reflected the way larger universities tended to promote entrepreneurship. The TEF panel praised UCL for its "highly successful approach to supporting students into employment" and noted that institutions going "above and beyond" to illustrate the benefits of employability initiatives might have benefited from higher rankings as a result.