Our Vice-Chancellor Professor Karen O'Brien reflects on her first term at Durham and shares some upcoming opportunities.

Two days of blissful celebration at Durham Cathedral has drawn to a close for our Winter Congregation.

Durham University are dedicated to maintaining our estate, which includes ancient woodland, grassland, wildflower meadows and wetland habitats, while also promoting biodiversity.

We’re celebrating the proud cultural heritage of County Durham by supporting an exciting programme of cultural projects and activities over the next few years. County Durham was recently shortlisted for the UK Government’s UK City of Culture title for 2025. In the end we narrowly missed out but working on the bid has helped forge even stronger relationships with culture partners, providing a catalyst for exciting future collaborations.

In May 2024, we celebrated a key milestone in the construction work currently taking place at Rushford Court in Durham City Centre, with the ceremonial tightening of a ‘golden bolt’.

Hester Hockin-Boyers (PhD student in Department of Sport and Exercise Sciences & Department of Sociology), Dr. Stacey Pope (Department of Sport and Exercise Sciences) and Dr. Kimberly Jamie from our Department of Sociology discuss the impact of social media on women’s mental health.

We are ranked 101-150 globally and joint 18th in the UK in the prestigious QS World University Rankings by Subject 2023.

Team Durham’s Minority Ethnic Showcase will take place at The Sport and Wellbeing Park on Wednesday 15th of June. The event will dedicate a series of matches/sessions from a variety of sports for participants from all ethnic minority communities, highlighting the talented athletes we have representing Team Durham. We encourage clubs to get behind their athletes who represent ethnic minority backgrounds, to come and show their support during the event.  

Antony Long introduces himself as Acting Vice-Chancellor and provides an update on Michaelmas term as teaching begins.

Lumiere is set to transform Durham into a spectacular outdoor gallery of light installations from 16 – 19 November. As a key partner, we are excited to once again light up the city.

Our overall student satisfaction rating is 81%, placing us in the Top 20 in the UK and Top 4 in the Russell Group of elite UK universities. The National Student Survey (NSS), an independent annual survey, evaluates how satisfied students are with the quality of their experience at university.

A literary fiction novel inspired by a real-life double murder in 1930s France has been published by Professor Catherine Dousteyssier-Khoze from our School of Modern Languages and Cultures.