The University

A brief history of GCU

Glasgow Caledonian University is Scotland’s fifth largest university in terms of student recruitment. Though our history dates back to 1875, Glasgow Caledonian was officially formed in 1993 with the merger of Glasgow Polytechnic and The Queen’s College, Glasgow. Since then the university has established a reputation for providing innovative, career focused programmes.

Our campus

Our campus is located in the heart of Glasgow city centre and is one of the best learning environments in the UK. The campus has been designed to not just provide space for people to learn, but also to talk, recharge and have fun.

The 2015 Vision

Our new vision is to become a distinctive, socially entrepreneurial university, led by our values, and focused on delivering our goals and promoting social good.

We aim to be known for our:

Social entrepreneurship

We will engage in effective economic and social regeneration activities in the community, using our intellectual capital to commercialise what we do with flair.

Learning and teaching

We will have a modern, flexible and effective approach to teaching and learning, making best use of information and communication technologies to deliver a broadly based curriculum, which reflects our vision.

Academic excellence in research

We will focus particularly on our areas of strength in Health, the Environment, Creative Cultures, Business and Technologies, and Social Justice.