The global outlook at Dundee, which is in the midst of increasing demand from international students, extends to its new joint education institute in China with the Central South University. Launched in 2021, it builds on the university’s already strong links with the country. The Dundee International Institute of Central South University expects 300 students per year to enrol on courses in maths, computer science, civil engineering and mechanical engineering with transportation. At the Dundee campus a China support hub launched in early 2022, delivering a full range of advice, guidance and IT support services in the Chinese language and in the appropriate time zone. 

Dundee’s self-contained city campus has benefited from about £200 million of redevelopment investment. The £50 million Discovery Centre encourages interaction between disciplines. Away from the city centre, the medical school is on a 20-acre site, while nursing and midwifery students are 35 miles away in Kirkcaldy. The highly rated design courses are taught at the Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, one of the university’s ten schools. Dundee also offers a joint degree with the National Union of Singapore.

The prospects have improved for graduates of Dundee — up eight places to 26= in our analysis of the Graduate Outcomes survey, which tracks how many students find highly skilled work or begin postgraduate study 15 months after the end of their degree course.

Three years ago, Dundee won our University of the Year for Student Experience award, but satisfaction ratings took a significant hit in the pandemic-affected National Student Survey last year and have yet to bounce back. Instead, they have fallen further still, by 36 places for student satisfaction with the wider undergraduate experience (85=) and by 15 places for teaching quality (77=). On-campus activity has resumed, with no restrictions on class sizes, although the prevalent teaching model will vary between subjects. Some courses returning to a lecture format and mainly in-person teaching; others with online lectures combined with in-person small group teaching. 

Dundee was one of three Scottish universities to earn a gold rating from the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) panel. Assessors commended the opportunities students are given to develop work-ready skills and knowledge, and said Dundee's courses encourage ideal levels of stretch and student engagement. Students from all backgrounds achieve outstanding outcomes at Dundee, the TEF report found.

In the latest Research Excellence Framework (REF 2021) Dundee did well in biological sciences, a strength which attracts students to the university from all over the world, and rising to 39= overall in our research quality index. 

Building on its reputation in this area, the university is creating a Life Sciences Innovation District in Dundee, which will support the creation of new businesses. The hope is that they will mirror the success of Exscientia, a spin-out company from the university that has grown into a significant pharmaceutical success in the UK.

For those taking humanities, social sciences and law degrees the university has integrated three former schools  (education and social work, humanities and social sciences) into a single School of Humanities, Social Sciences and Law. The union has been designed to foster a modern, dynamic school that builds on its constituents’ strengths. 

Dundee’s programmes to attract applications from students from underrepresented backgrounds make it sixth in Scotland for social inclusion, according to our analysis. It has whittled down its black achievement gap to the second-smallest in Scotland. The university’s summer schools prepare access to students for higher education and have helped more than 3,500 students who otherwise might not have considered university. 

Dundee offers one of the most generous financial support packages among UK universities. While Scottish students do not pay tuition fees at universities north of the border, and qualify for the Scottish government’s funding package, the university helps others with uncapped numbers of awards based on academic merit and/or financial need. The Rest of the UK bursary, for example, is worth £2,000 per year of study and global citizenship awards of £6,000 may be paid to international students on courses with fees of more than £19,500. In the 2021-22 academic year 74 per cent of international students had an award of some sort while about 80 per cent to 85 per cent of Rest of the UK students tend to receive one. 

Sports facilities on campus and at the Riverside sports ground on the banks of the River Tay are excellent. Scottish students who apply before June 30 are guaranteed student accommodation, and the application deadline is extended to August 25 for those with further to travel from the rest of the UK or abroad.

The university is a partner in Eden Project Dundee, an attraction being built on the former gasworks on East Street overlooking the River Tay, where wildflower meadows have already been planted in the run-up to the project getting fully underway. It follows the success of the striking V&A museum, less than a mile away, a focal point of the waterfront’s regeneration.

The main campus is just two minutes’ from the centre of student-friendly Dundee, where one in every seven people in the population is in higher education.