University of Sussex may be expanding

Vice-chancellor Adam Tickell is exploring campus expansion options

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The University of Sussex may possibly expand with a new campus outside the UK according to the university’s new Vice- Chancellor, Adam Tickell.

Seeing as the extension at the Falmer campus was not possible, the Vice-Chancellor is now exploring alternatives and has said that an additional campus outside the UK may be an option.

The VC added the university would not be too keen on sponsoring an academy if compelled to under government rules, but warned that it might hinder other endeavours.

He said: “If we have to do it, we will do it and we will do it well but it just means we won’t be able to do other things effectively.”

A £500m plan is underway which would create 4,000 student rooms and 60,000 square metres of academic facilities by the year 2020, allowing the university to take in 18,000 more students.

The newly appointed Vice-Chancellor also expressed how he feels that the university is still notably small compared to rival institutes, and that having more students would make the university more competitive and meet the university’s fixed costs, saying that the university’s campus was currently “pretty much at capacity”.

He commented: “Although the university feels big because of all the students that get off the buses, we’re a small university by British standards, Birmingham has twice as many students.

“The challenge we have as a university, we have a smaller number of students to support the fixed costs that we’ve got and our income will not rise now or at least not with anything like the same rate as our costs.

“Growing where we are is not an option so we need to be open to thinking about how we raise income from elsewhere.

“In terms of expansion of numbers here, I don’t see we have an option so that means we need to look, if we expand, at how we expand and where we expand, it might be in a different location.

“Some universities have gone down the route of opening campuses internationally and I’m always open to that but it’s not without its financial and management costs.”

“It’s probably five to ten year thinking rather than five to ten month thinking.”

Professor Tickell also suggested a potential partnership with the University of Brighton.