The University

Liverpool Hope University is a teaching-led, research informed University that seeks excellence in both and places great emphasis upon the integration of the two. Hope is a distinctive academic community that promotes the all-round education of its students and prides itself on the quality of the student experience. We are first and foremost an academic community and our ethos, structures, policies and, importantly, our physical campuses, promote the sense of such as we seek to provide an all-round environment in which all colleagues, both students and staff, can flourish and achieve their full potential. If you join us you will become a welcome member of our community and have the opportunity to play your own distinctive and valued part in it.

At Liverpool Hope we are proud of our long and distinguished tradition, which stretches back to 1844 when S. Katharine’s, the first of what were to become our founding colleges, was formed. In 1980 S. Katherine’s joined together with Notre Dame College (founded in 1865) and Christ’s College (founded 1965) to work in ecumenical federation under the title ‘Liverpool Institute of Higher Education’. The late Archbishop Derek Worlock and Bishop David Sheppard wrote of this as being ‘a sign of hope’. In 1995 a new Instrument and Articles of Government established a single, unified, ecumenical College, and a new name -Liverpool Hope -which better reflected our role and Mission, was taken.

From modest but confident beginnings the University has grown steadily, particularly over the past few years. With the granting of  full University status in 2005 and Research Degree Awarding Powers in 2009, Hope is now a fully autonomous, ambitious institution that builds upon the past for an imaginative future. The University now includes some 7,500 students, near 1,000 of which are working at postgraduate level, and over 1,000 staff.

We are currently engaged in major investment in both our Hope Park Campus and at our Creative Campus based in the city centre. This includes continuation of the all-round transformation of our grounds into extremely pleasant ‘garden campuses’, and also the multi-million pound projects of the brand-new Creative and Performing Arts building and a purpose-built Education and Innovation facility. This investment comes on the heels of the opening of the student-centred ‘Gateway Building’, again a multi-million pound project, which has brought together a range of student services to provide a one-stop shop. With the steady, and now cumulatively dramatic, reshaping of the campuses, a physical reflection of the underlying and equally impressive academic standards now operative at Hope, the University is well-placed for an exciting future as we continue to live out our distinctive mission.