All about us

As the UK’s leading university for Future Skills, our staff and students are sought after for their skills, knowledge and ability to innovate. We are committed to enhancing students’ life chances, supporting staff ambitions and strengthening the University’s impact on industry, policy and the professions to enable a sustainable future socially, economically and environmentally.

For more than 120 years, Kingston University has been driving innovation in education and community impact.

From our beginnings as Kingston Technical Institute in 1899 to our evolution into a modern institution, Kingston University has continually shaped the futures of students through academic excellence and forward-thinking teaching.

Our Town House Strategy is named after our internationally acclaimed, award-winning Town House building, and is built around four key themes:

• Driving a progressive new model of education, combining subject-specific knowledge with the future skills and attributes most needed by employers.
• Partnering with industry to develop students’ skills, and engaging government and organisations with the University’s expertise to further debate and influence policy.
• Having impact in research, knowledge exchange and professional practice.
• Providing an innovative and high-performing working environment for staff.

Future Skills

Since 2021, we have been driving a major skills revolution in higher education. Our sector-leading Future Skills campaign has been championing the importance of ensuring students develop the skills for innovation employers have told us they most value. Informed by pioneering research with leading businesses, Future Skills is our new transformative model of education, which is embedded in each year of every undergraduate course. Our students are developing and being assessed on the life skills employers most value as a core part of their learning, enabling them to succeed in their future careers.

Top leading research

In the latest Research Excellence Framework (REF), 70 per cent of the University’s research was rated world-leading or internationally excellent. Our research is transforming the lives of people around the world by responding to some of the biggest issues facing society. The University has established four new Knowledge Exchange and Research Institutes (KERIs) to drive excellence and collaboration in research and knowledge exchange, reflecting the University’s growing research ambitions and increasing strength.