Top 10 highlights of the University of Westminster in the 2021/22 academic year

1. Professor Shirley Thompson OBE, creator of the UEFA Women’s EURO 2022 Tournament Anthem, uniting sports and art through composition

Professor Shirley Thompson OBE, prominent composer, Artistic Director and Professor of Music at the University of Westminster, composed and conducted the Tournament Anthem entitled Beautiful Game for the UEFA Women’s EURO 2022.  The UEFA Women’s EURO Tournament was anticipated to reach 250 million people across Europe.

2. Being recognised as one of the global frontrunners against United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals

The University has been recognised as one of the top 15% out of over 1400 universities in the world for its work contributing to the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), according to the Times Higher Education (THE)’s Impact Rankings 2022. This is the third year in a row that the University has maintained its high overall ranking with notable achievements across several individual SDGs. 

3. Hosting the National Student Pride 2022

National Student Pride returned to the University of Westminster’s Marylebone Campus with their daytime festival for the 17th annual event. National Student Pride helps young people develop their skills and kick-start their careers through the UK’s largest LGBTQ+ graduate job fair. Along with the fair, National Student Pride hosted a range of talks and performances on the main stage. The festival is a not-for-profit organisation run by a committee of student volunteers and supported by a team of graduate volunteers and an experienced advisory board who help to strategically steer the organisation.

4. Celebrating Black History throughout the year

Some of the most enlightening highlights in the past academic year were the stories we heard about Black history as the University held its second Black History Year (BHY), led by Dr Deborah Husbands, Senior Lecturer in Psychology. This year, the event series showcased Black history through encounters with Black historians, writers, artists, academics and our own students and alumni. As part of BHY, George the Poet, a London-born spoken word performer of Ugandan heritage, performed at Westminster. His innovative brand of musical poetry has won him critical acclaim both as a recording artist and social commentator and seen his work broadcast to billions of people worldwide.

5. Westminster ranking second for social mobility among English universities

The University of Westminster was ranked second this year by the Institute for Fiscal Studies and educational charity the Sutton Trust which ranks universities in England for their contributions to social mobility. The report shows that the University of Westminster admitted 22% of students who were previously eligible for free school meals, with one in four going on to well-paid jobs. This gives Westminster a social mobility rating of 5.6% which is the second highest among universities in England.

6. Winning two BAFTA awards

Kim Tae Hak, an Audio Production MA graduate from the University of Westminster, was awarded a BAFTA TV Craft Award in the ‘Sound: Factual’ category for the series ‘1971: The Year That Music Changed Everything’. Kim worked on three of the six episodes of the show as a Sound Effect Editor, where his role was to reconstruct soundscapes for the entirety of the archive sequences used in the show that originally came with no sound or unusable sound sources.

Meanwhile, Westminster Senior Lecturer and researcher Dr Mykaell Riley contributed to the BBC show Uprising which won the Virgin Media BAFTA TV Awards 2022 in the Factual Series category. In the BBC documentary Dr Riley shared his story as a member of Steel Pulse, a British Reggae band that originated in Birmingham. In the late 1970s when police violence and the exclusion of Black people were still the norm in the UK, Steel Pulse was fighting against racism with music.

7. Westminster’s Windrush Justice Clinic winning ‘Best New Pro Bono Activity’ award

The Windrush Justice Clinic (WJC), of which the University of Westminster Legal Advice Clinic is a partner, has won an award in the LawWorks and Attorney General Student Pro Bono Awards in the ‘Best New Pro Bono Activity’ category. The award celebrates the best pro bono activities undertaken by Law students and Law schools, highlighting the positive impact on those assisted. The Windrush Justice Clinic takes a specialist approach that seeks to recompense applicants justly, offering advice, assistance, casework and representation as appropriate.

8. Hosting a delegation of 50 tradeswomen from North America on a mission

Westminster Business School hosted a delegation of 50 North American tradeswomen to inspire more women in the UK and internationally to build careers in the construction trades. The University of Westminster has been leading the way for research into women in construction since the 1990s, with its well-renowned Centre for the Study of the Production of the Built Environment Research (ProBE) publishing and contributing to dozens of pieces of literature on women in construction worldwide.

9. Celebrating the Platinum Jubilee of our patron, Her Majesty The Queen

To celebrate the Platinum Jubilee, the University of Westminster recalled its numerous royal encounters over the institution’s 180-year-long history. The University’s dedicated Archives team has compiled a timeline of these events giving us a unique insight into our history with Her Majesty The Queen, the patron of the University. 

10. Becoming an Associate of the United Nations body

The University of Westminster has been endorsed as an Associate of the United Nations Department of Global Communications (UN-DGC). The approval followed the UN-DGC Committee Meeting in May 2022 and was announced through a United Nations Press Release. UN-DGC is a leading UN body working towards the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), strengthening civil society partnerships and youth engagement across the world.

Learn about the highlights of the 2020/21 academic year.