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Falmouth University


About

Creative. Connected. Courageous. With more than 120 years of experience, professional facilities, teaching excellence, peerless connections and a vibrant creative community, we’re not afraid to do things differently. At Falmouth University, we’re rethinking the shape of higher education and delivering impactful research and innovation.

Creative. Connected. Courageous.

With more than 120 years of experience, professional facilities, teaching excellence, peerless connections and a vibrant creative community, we’re not afraid to do things differently. At Falmouth University, we’re rethinking the shape of higher education and delivering impactful research and innovation.

CreativeConnectedCourageous
One of the most valuable commodities in the future economy, our focus on creativity means students, researchers, entrepreneurs and innovators shape the world with out-of-the-box thinking.With industry links spanning the globe, we're a hub not just of creative innovation, but a place that celebrates and supports collaboration and transdisciplinary work with real reach.We're committed to pushing the limits of traditional boundaries and disciplines, meaning we’re working boldly, differently and disruptively to bring about new ideas, new ways of thinking and doing.
" Falmouth's enterprising dreamers will make the new rules and forge new careers. "



Dawn French, Chancellor

Doing it for real

Our industry connections, professional facilities, in-house agencies and challenge-led approach to teaching mean our students are doing it for real from day one.

We’re proud to work with some of the finest minds in their respective fields, and our students get to work with them too. Whether it’s paid opportunities through our agencies (such as Mayn), international placement or our programme of guest lecturers, we empower our students to carve out successful, entrepreneurial careers by giving them a head start in the industry.

We know that in today’s workplace, it’s important to be flexible. So in addition to our on-campus portfolio of degrees, we also offer online undergraduate and postgraduate courses that can be completed anywhere in the world and fit around a career or other responsibilities.

Research & Innovation

Our researchers work in an environment of Open Innovation to address the grand challenges of our age. This way of working encourages us to operate across disciplines, share ideas, stimulate invention and engage in entrepreneurial activities. It recognises that ideas come from many different sources and that we need to cooperate with partners from different sectors, with other businesses, markets and end-users.

Collaborating beyond boundaries

We believe collaboration is the catalyst for innovation and cultivating successful careers. That’s why we place an emphasis on working with peers, across disciplines and often hand-in-hand with industry partners.

Whether it’s alumni sharing professional opportunities with students, online learners connecting with the on-campus community or distinct disciplines colliding to create the unimaginable, tapping into our eclectic global community keeps us pushing beyond the realms of possibility.

We’re also committed to being an anchor institution in Cornwall and driving the growth of the regional economy. That means ensuring we’re working closely and strategically with Cornwall Council, the Local Enterprise Partnership and other local partners and industries. Visit our Working with Business page to find out how we're connecting with businesses and fuelling Cornwall's economy.

Falmouth Campus

Subtropical gardens and light-flooded studios make Falmouth Campus a haven for creative practice. With a lively creative community, impressive facilities and a library packed with resources, it’s the perfect space to share and develop your skills.

What's more, just a few steps from the town centre and a short stroll to the shores of Gyllyngvase beach, inspiration is never far from reach.

Art & Design Facilities

Primarily located at the Falmouth Campus in a subtropical garden, our studios and workshop facilities provide an exceptional environment for thinking and making: fostering experimentation, innovation, interdisciplinarity and critical dialogue.

Studio spaces and workshops

Falmouth students have access to their own individual studio space as well as creative studios that encourage collaboration. Our art and design facilities include life drawing studios and workshops supporting painting and printmaking.

Digital facilities

Our art and design facilities also support students who want to explore digital design. Our industry-standard facilities include animation and photography studios, as well as Mac and PC computing suites which are fully equipped with advanced design software.

Printmaking Facilities

Our state-of-the-art Printmaking Studio is located in the sub-tropical gardens on our Falmouth Campus

We facilitate a range of printmaking techniques and encourage both traditional and contemporary processes. We hold a range of inductions for students on different processes throughout the year.

All of our printmaking facilities are supported by highly trained and experienced technicians, who are on hand to assist students as they explore this medium.

Our studios can facilitate the following printing processes:

  • Monotyping
    Your image is drawn or painted on a smooth, non-absorbent surface, then transferred onto a sheet of paper by pressing the two together, usually using a printing press.
  • Intaglio
    Intaglio printing is the process where an image is incised into a surface, and the incised line or sunken area holds the ink. We are able to facilitate etching, engraving, dry point, collagraph and photopolymer.
  • Relief printing
    Protruding surface faces of your printing plate or block are inked; recessed areas are ink free. Printing the image is therefore a relatively simple matter of inking the face of the matrix and bringing it in firm contact with the paper. Typically students focus on woodcut and linocut relief processes.
  • Stone lithography
    Stone lithography is a traditional technique that uses simple chemical processes to create an image. For instance, the positive part of an image is a water-repelling substance, while the negative image is water-retaining. These marks are made on lithographic limestone.

Screen printing

We teach students hand cut, hand painted and photographic screen printing techniques. A woven mesh supports an ink-blocking stencil to receive a desired image. The attached stencil forms open areas of mesh that transfer ink or other printable materials, which can be pressed through the mesh as a sharp-edged image onto a substrate.

Library Facilities

There are libraries on both our Falmouth Campus and Penryn Campus. Offering extensive collections, our two libraries provide a wealth of digital resources, magazines, specialist material and journals. You'll find 30,000+ titles on DVD, Blu-Ray or to stream; image banks; news archives; business and creative databases; e-books and e-journals, all freely available.

The Falmouth Library is a specialist art, fashion and graphic design library with wide-ranging collections including 50,000 books, e-resources, image databases and print and online journals. This is an eclectic collection with a wealth of resources built up over many years.

IT facilities

  • Open-access Mac and PC IT suites on both campuses
  • Specialist IT and IT training suites with a range of software to meet generic and subject-specific needs
  • A central service desk with extended opening hours for IT support
  • Laptop loan and laptop clinic service
  • A range of IT training courses to complement training at the course level

What else is on Falmouth Campus?

Food & drinkGardensArt shop
At the heart of Falmouth Campus is Fox Cafe – a bright, spacious and comfortable café serving up hot and cold food, snacks and drinks. The courtyard also plays host to visiting food trucks offering everything from bangers with a twist to vegan thali.The plants in our peaceful subtropical garden hail from across the globe. A variety of trees have been gifted by passing sea captains and Kew Gardens; the campus boasts Bamboo, Lemon, Banana, Palm and Eucalyptus trees, as well as a variety of Agaves. They all thrive in the unique Cornish climate. This green space is the heart of the Falmouth campus and is the perfect spot for contemplating, roaming or simply relaxing with friends.The Art Shop stocks a wide range of art materials including Moleskine notebooks and artist-quality paints and mediums all at reasonable prices.

Penryn Campus

Standing proud above Penryn town and just a short hop away from the vibrant community of Falmouth, Penryn Campus’s architectural innovation, outstanding facilities and state-of-the-art technology make it the ideal place to ignite your academic fire.

Playing host to courses covering a spectrum of disciplines, from design and media to performance and writing, Penryn Campus sees students and staff gather to think, work, create and share – a collaborative melting pot of ideas and opportunities which are sure to challenge and inspire.

The Stannary is one of the county’s largest live events venues, welcoming a diverse range of musicians, DJs and pulsating club nights all through the year.

Sports Centre & Gym

Our Sports Centre and gym on Penryn Campus, includes a spacious fitness studio with up to 90 of the latest stations from Pulse Fitness, including cardiovascular, resistance and free weights areas.

A four-court sports hall is available for hire for a range of sports and activities, including 5-a-side football, tennis and badminton. Our fitness studio runs a variety of fun, weekly classes; from yoga and pilates to circuits and kettlebells.

Library Facilities

There are libraries on both our Falmouth Campus and Penryn Campus. Offering extensive collections, our two libraries provide a wealth of digital resources, magazines, specialist material and journals. You'll find 30,000+ titles on DVD, Blu-Ray or to stream; image banks; news archives; business and creative databases; e-books and e-journals, all freely available.

Our Penryn library is open 24/7 throughout the term, with a supportive team of subject librarians, technicians and archivists. Accessible through The Exchange, you'll benefit from bookable solo study spaces to maintain social distancing and have access to wifi throughout.

  • An extensive collection including over 100,000 books, a wide range of journals, print and online, electronic resources, and specialist video and DVD collections
  • Our media, design, and performance collections
  • The University of Exeter Penryn Campus collections are accessible to Falmouth students and staff
  • The Archives and Special Collections, including the unique Cornish Performance Archive, are available online

IT facilities

  • Open-access Mac and PC IT suites on both campuses
  • Specialist IT and IT training suites with a range of software to meet generic and subject-specific needs
  • A central service desk with extended opening hours for IT support
  • Laptop loan and laptop clinic service
  • A range of IT training courses to complement training at the course level

Games Academy Facilities

Falmouth has one of the largest dedicated game development studio spaces of any UK university. Our students have access to spacious, team-focused, professional-standard studios; as well as a dedicated craft room, breakout spaces, and a range of industry-standard software, management tools and game engines.

Our large games development studios are open late during term time, encouraging creative collaborations between students. Students also have access to weekly life drawing sessions, motion capture suits, augmented reality and mixed reality technology, and 3D printers.

Available equipment and tools include:

  • Portable VR systems including the Oculus Quest 2
  • Microsoft Hololens and Hololens 2
  • Over 400 high-end computers for development, over half featuring the latest Nvidia RTX graphics cards
  • Wacom Cintiqs and Intuos Pros
  • Sony PlayStation development kits
  • Xsens MVN Awinda motion capture suits
  • Android and iOS mobile development kits
  • Studiobricks voiceover recording studio
  • A range of audio field recording kits
  • A vast equipment stores with loanable items like headphones, game controllers and graphics tablets
  • Electronics and robotics R&D lab

Our software includes:

  • Unity
  • Unreal Engine
  • Autodesk Maya
  • Autodesk MotionBuilder
  • Pixologic ZBrush
  • Algorithmic Substance Suite
  • MVN Studio (motion capture)
  • Adobe Creative Cloud
  • Avid Pro Tools
  • SideFX Houdini
  • Marmoset Toolbag
  • Marvellous Designer

Media Equipment and Facilities

Our industry-level facilities offer everything you need to practice and produce animation, digital games, film, TV, radio and print media.

School of Film & Television stores

Located on Penryn Campus, our facilities and kit stores are open to our students from 9 am to midnight and on Saturday (during term time).

Performance Facilities

AMATA

The Academy of Music and Theatre Arts (AMATA) is a purpose-built live venue on the Penryn Campus housing an assembly of flexible theatre spaces, performance, rehearsal and recording studios, a box office and exhibition areas. As an AMATA student you'll be sharing performance facilities with the likes of Shobana Jeyasingh Dance, Forced Entertainment, Kneehigh theatre, Neil Halstead, Rei Nakamura and Graham Fitkin.

Performance facilities

As we're a public venue, you'll be working within facilities that are made for industry, including:

  • Multiple licensed performance spaces
  • 200-capacity flexible theatre space
  • 11 high-specification performance and rehearsal studios
  • 13 specialist studio spaces licensed for public performance
  • Digital box office system to support your professional practice
  • Production space to aid group work, project management and events
  • A public performance programme, which complements your learning through opportunities to volunteer and devise events
  • High-specification performance studios for both acoustic and electronic music

Social spaces

As well as practice rooms and breakout areas ripe for collboration and socialising, AMATA also has its own cafe which serves up hot drinks, delicious homemade cakes, salads, toasted sandwiches and hot food as well as a range of non-alcoholic and alcoholic beverages.

Rehearsal spaces

From dance to music to acting, our rehearsal spaces provide professional-standard facilities and equipment. Key features include:

  • 12 practice rooms
  • 700m2 of fully sprung dance floors
  • Seminar, exhibition and display spaces

Audio/recording equipment

From enhancing live performances to creating immersive music recordings, you'll be working with professional-standard audio equipment, including:

  • Purpose-built sound studios incorporating the best analogue and digital technologies, including SSL and TLA valve consoles, fully accessible from your own laptop
  • Classic and contemporary synthesizers and outboard equipment
  • Professional software and one of the UK's largest collections of microphones in higher education
  • The SONVA-x 10.2 Genelec surround system for mixing and performance

Fashion & Textiles Facilities

Centred around studio spaces on the Penryn Campus that cater for solo and group working, our Fashion & Textiles Institute includes a printmaking studio, digital fabric printers, professional fitting stands, ultrasonic welders, sampling facilities, hand looms, a digitally controlled Jacquard loom, embroidery machines and industrial overlockers.

All courses are served by professional equipment and facilities, enabling you to transform concepts into commercial realities.

Facilities include:

  • Cutting tables
  • Professional fitting stands
  • Laser cutting equipment
  • Silicon taping machine
  • Ultrasonic welder
  • Designated wet processes room
  • Industrial overlockers
  • Blind stitching machines
  • Knitting machines
  • Weave facility featuring hand looms and a computer-controlled Jacquard loom
  • Industrial and digital embroidery machinery
  • Workshops dedicated to dyeing and manual printing
  • Online access to WGSN and LS:N Global
  • Multiple large professional studios with the latest photographic equipment - frequently used by external professionals
  • Fully colour-managed digital Mac suites with specialist print processing
  • Software training facilities with Adobe Creative Suite
  • Professional printing and mounting service equipped with digital printers and large-format inkjet printers

Photography facilities

If you're a Fashion Photography student you'll also have access to our unmatchable photography facilities. From a store stocked with all the latest equipment to professional studios, processing labs and post-production suites, you'll be working within industry-standard surroundings from the very beginning of your studies.

Photography Facilities

In our multi-million-pound photographic centre you'll be able to develop the expertise that applies to your individual journey, ranging from traditional analogue processes, including colour darkroom skills, to digital post-production.

Institute of Photography stores

The equipment hire desk is manned throughout the year, offering a range of the latest industry equipment free to loan.

Photo Lab (print services)

As a photo-finishing facility, providing prints to students, university staff, professionals and the general public, we pride ourselves in our ability to produce professional results that compete with the top labs in the UK.

Our facilities

Housing dark rooms, post-production suites, full professional studios and gallery, our Institute of Photography encompasses both traditional and digital processes.

Facilities include:

  • Multiple darkrooms and process areas.
  • Large professional studios.
  • Film and paper processing machines.
  • Fully colour-managed digital suites.
  • Digital training area with Adobe Creative Suite.
  • Professional quality film scanners with the latest software.
  • Printing and mounting service.
  • Photography store containing a range of professional equipment for loan.
  • Lenses from 8mm to 800mm, cameras from 35mm to large format, DSLR cameras, medium format digital cameras and backs, specialist equipment and accessories, and underwater camera kits - all to a professional standard.
  • Photo-microscopy laboratory.
  • Fully equipped hide for nature study, photography and filming.

What else is on Penryn Campus?

Food & drink Gardens

Whether you feast on a continental breakfast at the Stannary Café, grab a panini to go from the Sustainability Café, or gather your mates for a night of handmade pizza at Koofi, Penryn Campus offers a variety of eating options for all tastes and dietary needs. The Stannary also houses our on-campus bar, with the whole space transforming into one of the county’s largest music venues for our Students’ Union events.

Visit Penryn Campus Shop if you need a quick sandwich or snack before your lecture. Penryn Campus shop also stocks a range of household essentials as well as locally sourced vegetables, meat and bread.

Our award-winning Tremough Gardens at Penryn Campus are open for all to enjoy. Visitors can take in the walled garden, herbaceous beds, sub-tropical planting, fruit-producing orchard, Italian garden and terraces, the 18th Century lime avenue, parkland, the old drive with pinetum native woodlands and the historic rare Rhododendrons, cultivated on the site in the Victorian era. Ideal for de-stressing, ideas generating and playing.

 

Glasney Student Village

The Compass

Penryn Campus is home to Glasney Student Village. Housing 1800 students, the 90-acre site offers enviable views over Falmouth and Penryn, the sea and the surrounding countryside.

The Compass is your first point of call for any student services enquiries. Whether you have a quick question, require specialist support or need advice on any aspect of student life, our friendly and well-trained staff are on hand 24/7 during term time.

AIR

Launchpad

Falmouth University's Academy for Innovation and Research (AIR) enables staff and students to work with businesses on large-scale development projects. With a focus on the digital economy and sustainable design – that have both national significance and a particular resonance in Cornwall, it offers opportunities to engage with key challenges of our time including; new applications for superfast broadband, health and wellbeing and sustainable transport.

Connected to AIR via the Creative Bridge (a meeting and working space for guests, staff and students), the Launchpad building is home to the University’s ground-breaking venture studio. It brings together teams of highly skilled software, creative, digital and business minds to develop high-growth digital companies. Having benefited from £9.8m funding from ERDF and co-investments from Cornwall Council and the University of Falmouth, Launchpad can now accommodate up to 40 businesses. 

Tremough Innovation Centre

Environment & Sustainability Institute

Owned and run by Cornwall Innovation, The Tremough Innovation Centre (TIC) is a business acceleration facility providing dynamic office space, access to individually tailored business support services, cutting-edge meeting and conference facilities, informal networking areas, fabulous connectivity and technology and connection to a vibrant and collaborative business community.

The University of Exeter's Environment and Sustainability Institute (ESI) is an interdisciplinary centre leading cutting-edge research into solutions to problems of environmental change. Its world class research and education is enhancing people's lives by improving their relationships with the environment.

The Exchange

 

Shared with the University of Exeter, The Exchange is a £10m learning, teaching and research hub at the heart of Penryn Campus. Created to foster exploration and collaboration, the vibrant, welcoming space gives both students and staff access to the full spectrum of academic and support services.

 

    • Falmouth

      Falmouth Campus Woodlane, TR11 4RH, Falmouth

      • Penryn

        Penryn Campus Treliever Road, TR10 9FE, Penryn

        • Falmouth

          Woodlane, TR11 4RH, Falmouth

          Questions

          Falmouth University