London South Bank University

Founded as the Borough Polytechnic Institute in 1892, the institution is located in the London Borough of Southwark and is among the five largest universities in the city.

The institution has had several different names but it did not become known as the London South Bank University (LSBU) until a century after it was originally founded, when the British government enacted the Further and Higher Education Act of 1992, granting full university status to all polytechnic institutions.

In 2015 the LSBU infrastructure was refined and today there are seven academic schools, namely the School of Applied Sciences, the School of Arts and Creative Industries, the School of The Built Environment and Architecture, the School of Business, the School of Engineering, the School of Health and Social Care, and the School of Law and Social Sciences.

Around three-quarters of LSBU’s 17,000-strong student population are undergraduates, and over 70 percent of LSBU students come from the Greater London area with 25 percent from south-east London. In the 2014-15 academic year, 83 percent of the students enrolled were over 21 years-old, meaning a significant proportion of mature students.

A lot of the university degree programs are vocational and are accredited by professional organisations, meaning that a high proportion of graduates are able to go straight into employment on completion of their course.

Since it was awarded university status LSBU has had three chancellors – Christopher Mclaren, internationally-renowned former newscaster Sir Trevor MacDonald and Australian investor Richard Farleigh, perhaps best-known for his role on BBC’s Dragon’s Den.