League leaders!

Despite years of financial strife, Lancaster is now the North West's only premier league university.

Lancaster finished joint tenth, well behind champions Cambridge but ahead of North West derby rivals such as Manchester and Liverpool. Other famous universities lagging behind Lancaster included St Andrews, Bristol and King's College London.

However Gerry Harris, head of the university's theatre studies department, given full marks in the survey, says that academics and students will have to work progressively harder to avoid relegation. She told the Citizen "We're working harder and harder to maintain our standards." She added "There's no reason to be too satisfied with this result." Ms Harris pointed to increasing external pressures in higher education, including declining finances, constant assessment and changes to student financial support. She is, however, proud of the achievements of current and former theatre studies students, who have been responsible for setting up four touring theatre companies.

The results are measured according to a survey of individual university departments, judging the quality of teaching and management. The departments were marked out of 24, with over 22 points considered "excellent".

Twelve out of 20 departments at Lancaster were considered excellent while, according to university spokeswoman Vicky Tyrell: "Lancaster has no departments rated unsatisfactory."

The latest achievement follows a number of recent successes for the university. The prestigious business management MBA course is now rated among the top 50 of its type in the world, while students are celebrating a second successful year in the Red Mole survey, an internet site which questions students on the social side of university life. Lancaster once again scored highly for good looking men and women and came first overall.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.