Lancaster Environment Centre

At Lancaster we offer flexible biology undergraduate degrees providing you with a wide range of subjects from which to choose.

These range from our Biological Science degree which studies all aspects of biology, to specialised courses with either an environmental focus such as Conservation Biology, Environmental Biology and Ecology, or a cellular / molecular focus such as Biochemistry, Biomedical Science and Cell Biology.

Our degrees are recognised as some of the finest of their kind in the world. Here are some of the reasons why:

Top rated university

Lancaster is a sociable and friendly college-based campus university ranked as the top university in the North West in the National Student Survey and by the Times Good University Guide (2012), Guardian University Guide (2012), and The Independent Complete Universities Guide (2012). Lancaster is rated 9th, 7th and 9th overall in the UK in those same league tables. Times Good University Guide (2012) rates Lancaster as 6th in the UK for Biological Sciences.

Excellence in Teaching

The teaching of biology at Lancaster is of the highest quality and has been given the top rating for excellence, a judgement of ‘full confidence’, in the official inspection of teaching quality, the PQR.

Our modern flexible degree schemes provide a stimulating, high-quality and innovative teaching environment that offer students a diverse range of learning approaches so that our graduates are well equipped to deal with today’s multidisciplinary work environments.

You can:

• Choose either to study all biology-related subjects in the first year or to combine biology with elements of other subjects, such as computing, psychology, geography, or French, for example.
• Gain practical experience of a range of environments through field work and field courses both in the UK and Spain.
• Spend your second year in a university in either North America or Australasia, giving you the opportunity to master a different educational and cultural environment and to develop intellectually, personally and socially.
• Perform an original piece of cutting-edge research in your chosen subject area for your third year research project. This can be carried out either in one of the Departmental research laboratories, or as a work placement organised through LEC’s Enterprise & Business Partnerships team.

Research-led teaching

Research makes an essential contribution to the quality of biology teaching at Lancaster, ensuring that our degrees remain relevant to the needs of employers backed by the latest research thinking and methodologies. We take an integrated approach to studying biology at Lancaster, performing research at the interface between biology and the environment. Research activity is focused within the Lancaster Environment Centre and the Division of Biomedical & Life Sciences in the School of Health and Medicine. In the most recent assessment of research quality in UK universities (the 2008 RAE), research at Lancaster University was rated as being of the highest international level with:

• 90% of staff being ‘research active’ (considerably above the national norm).
• 92% of research being world leading or internationally significant.

• Lancaster placed in the top ten in the country overall for research quality taking into account the high proportion of staff submitted to the RAE.
• The Lancaster Environment Centre ranked 12th in the UK for Earth Systems and Environmental Sciences research. Our research impact in Environment & Ecology was rated 5th nationally and 32nd globally by the Times Higher Education (2010).
• The Division of Biomedical & Life Sciences ranked joint 1st in the UK for Allied Health Professions and Studies research.

High graduate employment

A degree in biology from Lancaster will give you a great start in your future career:

• More than two thirds of our graduates pursue biology-related careers, for example, in research (academic, industrial, hospital, field), teaching, the NHS, forensic science, and conservation and environmental management.
• Many of our students choose to pursue research through further study to gain MSc or PhD qualifications.
• The remaining one third of graduates put the broad base of transferable skills, learnt during their degree, to good use in other careers such as finance, management and marketing.

State-of-the-art Facilities

The University has recently spent millions of pounds on the teaching and research facilities for biology at Lancaster in the Lancaster Environment Centre and in the School of Health & Medicine.

Our new practical laboratories in the Faraday Building can hold up to 100 students in each and contain all of the equipment needed for the practical sessions associated with each course.

Furthermore, Lancaster’s position close to a diverse range of natural environments such as the Lake District, the Yorkshire Dales, and Morecambe Bay provides excellent opportunities for field work in addition to those offered by our residential field courses in Scotland and Spain.