Next year the University of Worcester will mark its 75th anniversary since being founded after the Second World War with a mission to ‘win the peace through education’.

Throughout those seven-and-a-half decades, the university has been at the heart of the Worcester community, providing education, jobs and support to local people and businesses.

Since its beginnings as an Emergency Teacher Training College, the university has trained hundreds of thousands of teachers who have gone on to work in schools across the city and far beyond, making a huge impact to the lives of children and their families.

In 1995, the then Worcester College of Higher Education, as the university was, merged with the Hereford and Worcestershire College of Nursing and Midwifery, and has since gone on to educate thousands of nurses, midwives, and many other health professionals to work in hospitals and community settings.

Now Worcester provides a full range of courses and has earned a reputation as one of the most inclusive universities in the country, believing passionately that everyone who has the determination and ability to study for a higher education should be given the opportunity to do so.

Worcester is in the top 10 universities to best reflect society (HEPI 2017) and last year was shortlisted for University of the Year in the UK Social Mobility Awards, as well as in the Times Higher Education Awards.

John Bateman OBE, chair of governors, said: “We believe that a university education both transforms the lives of individual students and the society in which we live, and our goal is to be engaged more productively than ever in the city, nation and world around us.”

As well as supporting the community through the education of thousands of students each year, the university is one of the city’s largest employers, with more than 1,000 members of staff.

The university, which is the number one university in the UK for fair gender pay, directly employs all of its own cleaning, grounds and security staff, roles which are out-sourced at many other universities. This inclusive policy creates secure, properly pensionable employment for many local people and forms part of a whole institution approach to student support and wellbeing.

For the last 17 years, the university has been operating a highly successful Community Forum, a place where people from all parts of the community can hear updates, share thoughts and exchange ideas.

At the most recent meeting – held virtually due to the lockdown - members heard about the many ways the university has been contributing to the local and national efforts to the Covid-19 pandemic, including sending all of its clinical equipment to the NHS, supporting our nurses, paramedics and other health professionals to join the frontline, and encouraging students and staff to get involved in volunteering in the community.

Speaking after the meeting, Sarah Boyce, headteacher at Oldbury Park Primary School, said: “I was impressed with all the strategies and initiatives that are in place to support the university community as a whole, many of these being run by the students themselves.”

Simon Geraghty, leader of Worcestershire County Council, added: “It’s great to see the University of Worcester working as part of our One Worcestershire response to the challenges posed by the coronavirus pandemic – whether that be in direct assistance to the NHS helping to bolster the provision of equipment, students stepping up to work on the frontline or in our community response to ensure people get the help and support they need during these extraordinary times.”

The university is supporting our Love Local Business campaign, which encourages our readers to spend their money locally to help traders recover from lockdown.

Launched by the Worcester News and sister titles Malvern Gazette and Evesham Journal, our campaign profiles businesses online and in print.

Campaign sponsors now include Crowngate Shopping Centre, Herefordshire & Worcestershire Chamber of Commerce, Worcester BID, Visit Worcester, Tom Cook Carpets and Worcester City Council, as well as the university.

Any business which wants to be featured, contact Dale Godliman on 01905 742372 or dale.godliman@localiq.co.uk