University Centre Shrewsbury (UCS) is creating new academic and research opportunities for students and staff in partnership with the prestigious New College of the Humanities (NCH), founded by esteemed author, academic and philosopher AC Grayling.

Professor Tim Wheeler, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Chester and AC Grayling, Master of NCH, London, and its Professor of Philosophy, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) this week.

Strengthening links between UCS and NCH, they agreed the MoU at the Evolution of Education Conference this week (Tuesday 13 February 2018), which was held at Guildhall, UCS’s learning and research base.

The Memorandum outlines how the two institutions will work together to enhance learning and research in a range of ways including student and staff exchanges, the development and sharing of publications, and collaboration on research.

NCH is a university-level college in the heart of London. Small by design, it offers a unique and broad liberal arts-inspired curriculum with highly personalised teaching, including a gold standard one-to-one tutorial system.

A partnership between the University of Chester and Shropshire Council, UCS is a distinctive institution, focused on high-quality teaching and research, fostering entrepreneurship and contributing to the community.

Prof Wheeler said:

“This Memorandum of Understanding reinforces the relationship for which we have created the foundations between UCS and the New College of the Humanities, including running the Evolution of Education Conference together this week.

“Our students benefit from excellent learning and research opportunities, and by working with NCH we can further increase the leading-edge options available to them.”

Prof Grayling added:

“Co-operating and pooling strengths is the way of the future; together UCS and NCH can make contributions in our shared fields of interest to the great benefit of our students and higher education in general. The Memorandum of Understanding we have signed together is a demonstration of that link and our commitment to it.”

Prof Grayling is the author of more than 30 books on philosophy, biography, history of ideas, and essays. He is a columnist for Prospect magazine, and was for a number of years a columnist on the Guardian and Times. He has contributed to many leading newspapers in the UK, US and Australia, to BBC Radio 4, 3, 2 and the World Service, for which he did the annual Exchanges at the Frontier series. He also often appears on television.

He has twice been a judge for the Booker Prize, in 2015 serving as the Chair of the judging panel. He is a Vice President of the British Humanist Association, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

The Evolution of Education Conference focused on the challenges posed for the future of education in a complex and uncertain world, and featured keynote addresses from Prof Grayling and Prof Wheeler.

For further details on NCH see www.nchlondon.ac.uk. For more information on UCS go to www.ucshrewsbury.ac.uk. Updates on UCS are also available at www.facebook.com/ucshrewsbury and www.twitter.com/ucshrewsbury.