University Academy 92 (UA92) is a higher education institution in Old Trafford, Greater Manchester, England.
History
UA92 was announced in September 2017 and offers “broader courses than traditional degrees, designed to enhance life skills as well as employability”. Degrees have a focus on personal and character development, and the skills needed for the workplace.
UA92 was co-founded by Lancaster University and members of the Class of '92, the Manchester United football players who won the 1992 FA Youth Cup, including Gary Neville, Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes, Phil Neville and Nicky Butt. Following their successful careers after football, the players wanted to open a university which would attract students who "otherwise might not go on to higher education".
UA92 has been described by The Times as “a venture setting out to help disadvantaged young people in Manchester get a better education, with a new university that explicitly draws on the strategies and mindset of elite sport".
It opened in September 2019 in Old Trafford, Manchester.
UA92 works in partnership with industry to develop a curriculum inspired by business needs. Current partners include Microsoft, Trafford College, KPMG, Manchester United and Lancashire County Cricket Club.
In January 2021, UA92 was accepted into the Office for Students register of higher education institutions following an inspection by the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA).
In December 2021, it was awarded £2m funding by the Office for Students to develop a new digital academy on campus. UA92 said “the new academy will increase UA92’s student capacity for digital students almost tenfold – from 65 to 634”.
Initiatives
In 2021, UA92 launched its 'Make It For Real' campaign to support disadvantaged students. Students eligible for the grant will each receive a Microsoft Surface Pro laptop and unlimited TalkTalk data for three years, Co-op lunch vouchers (five days a week, 52 weeks of the year for the length of their course), £150 Dunelm home vouchers and free travel to get to UA92. To qualify for the package, students needed to currently be in receipt of free school meals in their last year at school or college.
The campaign was inspired by fellow Manchester United player Marcus Rashford’s campaign for free school lunches in primary schools across the UK.
In November 2021, Wes Streeting MP, the Shadow Child Poverty Secretary, visited the campus to discuss the initiative and best practice in levelling up across education. He said the package, worth £5,000, was “a shining example of positive action to help young people from disadvantaged backgrounds access higher education”.
UA92 Business School
In June 2023, UA92 announced plans to expand its operations into Manchester city centre after surpassing growth forecasts.
The higher education institution, founded by the Class of ‘92 and Lancaster University, is due to open a 36,000 square foot UA92 Business School in Baskerville House, opposite Salford Central and next to Spinningfields, adding to its current Old Trafford campus.
The new campus, which opened in September 2023, hosts the facility’s business school and is a central hub for its collaboration and enterprise with UA92’s business partners, catering for up to 1000 students. The move comes as UA92 has accelerated its strategic plans by two years, after exceeding forecasts for student numbers.
Since launching in 2019, it has been instrumental in making higher education more accessible through its founding principles of social mobility and inclusivity, and now caters for over 800 students, offering a portfolio of degree and higher education industry-led courses across business, sport, media and digital disciplines.
Teaching Excellence Awards (TEF)
In September 2023, University Academy 92 (UA92) was awarded an overall rating of silver in the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) scheme. UA92 became the youngest higher education establishment to be awarded silver in inaugural teaching excellence framework.
The Silver overall rating signals that the student experience and student outcomes at UA92 are typically of a very high quality and positions the institution as the youngest higher education provider to be awarded Silver.
The Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) is a national scheme run by the Office for Students (OfS) that aims to encourage higher education providers to improve and deliver excellence in the areas that students care about the most: teaching, learning and achieving positive outcomes from their studies.