Goldsmiths Press
According to Quacquarelli Symonds (2021), Goldsmiths ranks 12th in Communication and Media Studies, 15th in Art & Design and is ranked in the top 50 in the areas of Anthropology, Sociology and the Performing Arts. In 2020, the university enrolled over 10,000 students at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. 37% of students come from outside the United Kingdom and 52% of all undergraduates are mature students (aged 21 or over at the start of their studies). Additionally, around a third of students at Goldsmiths are postgraduate students.
History
Founding
In 1891, the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths, one of the Livery Companies of the City of London, founded The Goldsmiths' Technical and Recreative Institute (more commonly referred to simply as the "Goldsmiths' Institute"). The Goldsmiths' Company was established in the 12th century as a medieval guild for goldsmiths, silversmiths, and jewellers. The Livery Company dedicated the foundation of its new Institute to "the promotion of technical skill, knowledge, health and general well-being among men and women of the industrial, working and artisan classes". The original Institute was based in New Cross at the site of the former Royal Naval School; the building, now known as the Richard Hoggart Building, remains the main building of the campus today.
20th century
In 1904, the institute was merged with the University of London and was re-established as Goldsmiths' College (the apostrophe was removed in 1993, and the word 'College' dropped in a rebranding in 2006). At this point Goldsmiths was the largest teacher training institution in the country. Training functions were later expanded to include refresher courses for teachers, the University Postgraduate Certificate in Education and an Art teacher's Certificate course. The college also ran its own Nursery School.
Shortly after the merger, in 1907, Goldsmiths added a new Arts building, designed by Sir Reginald Blomfield, at the back of the main building. During the Second World War it was decided to evacuate the faculty and students of the college to University College, Nottingham, a decision which proved wise both at the time and in hindsight, since the main building was struck by an incendiary bomb and gutted in 1940 (and not finally repaired until 1947).
During the 1960s, Goldsmiths experienced a rapid expansion in student numbers. It is during this period that Goldsmiths began to establish its reputation in the arts and social science fields, as well as offering a number of new teacher training qualifications. The original main building was expanded, and the Lockwood Building, Whitehead Building, Education Building, Warmington Tower and St James's Hall were all built to accommodate the influx of new students. The university also acquired a number of historic buildings in the surrounding area, including the splendid former Deptford Town Hall and Laurie Grove Baths buildings. The Richard Hoggart Building, Deptford Town Hall and the Laurie Grove Baths all retain Grade II listed building status.
In 1988, Goldsmiths became a full College of the University of London and in 1990 received its Royal Charter.
21st century
In 2018, the former boiler house and public laundry of Laurie Grove Baths was refurbished and opened as Goldsmiths CCA.
In August 2019, Goldsmiths announced that it would be removing all beef products from sale and would be charging a 10p levy on bottled water and single-use plastic cups. The changes were introduced as part of the university's efforts to become carbon neutral by 2025.
Financial difficulties and restructuring
In 2019, Goldsmiths ran a deficit and Frances Corner became Warden; Corner's administration was regularly opposed by faculty and students over governance and financial strategy.
In January 2020, Goldsmiths proposed to cut costs by 15% over two years in the "Evolving Goldsmiths" plan by reducing faculty and centralizing administration. According to the Goldsmiths University and College Union (UCU), the plan did not address the causes of the deficit, which it attributed in part to overoptimistic enrolment forecasts and excessive capital expenditures. Furthermore, UCU warned that cuts to faculty would increase the deficit by reducing the income stream of tuition fees, which accounted for 77% of the College's revenue in the 2019-2020 fiscal year. "Evolving Goldsmiths" was "closed" in April 2022. In summer 2020, the UCU proposed selling "underused" property to build cash reserves; this was not done. Goldsmiths consolidated and refinanced its loans through NatWest and Lloyds Bank; the banks required the College to consult KPMG to discover cost saving opportunities.
The 2021 "recovery plan" included elimination of 52 faculty and staff positions. Goldsmiths identified additional costs from COVID-19 and over-staffing caused increased competition for student applications following the removal of limits on student numbers by the government. According to the UCU in March 2022, the Collage refused to stop layoffs although savings from voluntary resignations and maintaining vacancies exceeded the requirements of the banks. Administrative was concentrated into a central hub in 2021-2022; the resulting "chaos" reduced the number of enrolments by international students; international students are a critical revenue steam. Through 2021, Corner also charged the College nearly £20,000 for taxi fares, with £9,000 being for personal use.
The "Transformation Programme", announced in early 2024, included the elimination of 132 full-time, or equivalent, positions, or 17% of all staff, with some departments being reduced by 50%. The plan was expected to be completed by September. According to The Guardian, the extent of the cuts would radically change the College's culture.
Campus and location
Goldsmiths is situated in New Cross, a highly populated area of south-east London.
The main building, the Richard Hoggart Building, was originally designed as a school (opened in 1844) by the architect John Shaw, Jr (1803–1870). The former Deptford Town Hall building, designed by Henry Vaughan Lanchester and Edwin Alfred Rickards, acquired in 1998, is used for academic seminars and conferences. In addition to this Goldsmiths has built several more modern buildings to develop the campus, including the RIBA award-winning Rutherford Building completed in 1997, the Ben Pimlott Building designed by Will Alsop and completed in 2005, and the Professor Stuart Hall Building (formerly the New Academic Building), which was completed in 2010.
The library, or the Rutherford Building', has three floors and gives students access to an extensive range of printed and electronic resources. Goldsmiths' students, like all other students in the University of London, have full access to the collections at Senate House Library at Bloomsbury in central London.
The seven-storey Ben Pimlott Building on New Cross Road, complete with its distinctive "scribble in the sky" (made from 229 separate pieces of metal) has become a signature of modern Goldsmiths. It contains studio and teaching space for the Department of Art, as well as housing the Goldsmiths Digital Studios and the Centre for Cognition, Computation and Culture.
The Professor Stuart Hall Building, situated next to the green, is home to the Media and Communications Department and the Institute for Creative and Cultural Entrepreneurship (ICCE). Formerly the New Academic Building), in 2014 it was re-named after cultural theorist Stuart Hall. Facilities include a 250-seat lecture theatre, seminar and teaching rooms, as well as a cafe with outdoor seating.
Academic profile
Faculties and departments
Art
- The Head of Department is Richard Noble. Notable alumni include Damien Hirst, Sarah Lucas, Steve McQueen, Gillian Wearing, Fiona Banner, Angela Bulloch and Graham Coxon.
- The university is also a member of the Screen Studies Group, London.
Design
The Department of Design's approach to design practice grew from a concern for ethical and environmentalist design. This developed alongside research by John Wood, Julia Lockheart, and others, which informs their research into metadesign. TERU, the Technology Education Research Unit, has been instrumental in understanding how design and technology work in schools, how to encourage learners towards creative interventions that improve the made world, and how to help teachers to support that process. The Writing Purposefully in Art and Design Network (Writing-PAD) has its main Centre at Goldsmiths. The Network now spans about 70 institutions across the art and design sector with 6 national and 2 International Writing PAD Centres.
Computing
The Department of Computing lets students develop their creative potential while learning solid computing skills with programs focused on Computer Science, Computer Games Art & Design, Computational Technology, Computational Cognitive Neuroscience, Computer Games Programming, Computational Linguistics, Data Science, User Experience Engineering, and Virtual & Augmented Reality.
Sociology
The Sociology Department include Nirmal Puwar, and Les Back.
Cultural studies
The Media and Communications Department, as well as the Centre for Cultural Studies, include Matthew Fuller, Scott Lash, Angela McRobbie, Nirmal Puwar and (formerly) Sara Ahmed.
Institute for Creative and Cultural Entrepreneurship
The Institute for Creative and Cultural Entrepreneurship delivers entrepreneurship, cultural management and policy education to the creative and cultural sectors.
Anthropology
The Department of Anthropology teaching staff include Keith Hart and (formerly) David Graeber. The department is known for its focus on visual anthropology. The realm of continental philosophy is represented with academics such as Saul Newman, as well as Visiting Professors Andrew Benjamin and Bernard Stiegler. In the area of Psychology there is Chris French who specialises in the psychology of paranormal beliefs and experiences, cognition and emotion. Saul Newman – notable for developing the concept of post-anarchism – is currently leading the department of politics.
English and comparative literature
The English & Comparative Literature Department covers English, comparative literature, American literature, creative writing and linguistics. Current academics include Blake Morrison and Chris Baldick.
Music
The Research Centre for Russian Music, convened by Alexander Ivashkin until his death in 2014, is internationally renowned for its archives devoted to Prokofiev and Schnittke, and unique collections including of music by Stravinsky, and first editions of Russian Piano Music.
Other research centres at the department include the Unit for Sound Practice Research, Contemporary Music Research Group, Asian Music Unit, Afghanistan Music Unit, Fringe and Underground Music Group, and the Centre for Music and Ethnographic Film. The Sonic Scope Journal of Audiovisual Studies is based in the department.
The department curates the annual PureGold festival, which takes place during May and June in venues across South-East London including the Albany Theatre, Deptford. It continues with PureGold [REDUX], which showcases postgraduate students in September, with a final MMus show in November, with work from Creative Practice, Composition, Sonic Arts, Performance & Related Studies and Popular Music students. The department houses two recording studios: Goldsmiths Music Studios, and the Stanley Glasser Electronic Music Studios, established in 1968 by the composer, instrument maker, and musicologist Hugh Davies.
NX Records, an independent record label, is a collaboration between Matthew Herbert's Accidental Records and the Department of Music.
Educational studies
The Department of Educational Studies teaches undergraduate, masters and doctoral courses, and is home to a large programme of initial teacher education (primary and secondary), based on partnership arrangements with over 1500 schools and colleges.
Additional academic programs
Goldsmiths paired with Tungsten Network in 2015 to develop a research program that explores advanced artificial intelligence techniques for Big Data and business practices. Known as Tungsten Centre for Intelligent Data Analytics, the program is based in the company's London office.
Rankings
| National rankings | |
|---|---|
| Complete (2025) | 52= |
| Guardian (2024) | 111 |
| Times / Sunday Times (2024) | 96 |
| Global rankings | |
| QS (2025) | 681–690 |
| THE (2024) | 401–500 |
QS World University Rankings ranked Goldsmiths' media and communications offerings as second in the UK and eighth worldwide in 2017, and second and eleventh respectively in 2023.
Open access to research by Goldsmiths academics
Goldsmiths Research Online (GRO) is a repository of research publications and other research outputs conducted by academics at Goldsmiths. The repository also holds Goldsmiths' collection of doctoral theses. GRO is part of Goldsmiths Online Research Collections (ORC) which also includes Goldsmiths Journals Online (GOJO), a hosting platform for open access journals and conference proceedings.
Student life
Sports, clubs and traditions
Sports teams and societies are organised by the Goldsmiths Students' Union. The Union runs 18 sports clubs, 11 of which compete in either University of London Union or BUCS leagues.
The Students' Union runs 35 societies, ranging from political societies and identity-based societies (for example the Jewish society and the LGBT society) to interest-based societies (the Drama Society and the on-campus radio station Wired) and more.
Student media
Goldsmiths has a long history of student-led media platforms, including Smiths Magazine, The Leopard newspaper, and Wired radio. The student media is run independently by students at the college.
Student housing
Accommodation Services offers accommodation within seven halls:
- Loring Hall
- Ewen Henderson Court
- Quantum Court
- Town Hall Camberwell
- Surrey House
- Chesterman House
- Raymont Hall
Electricity, internet and gas bills are included in the rent. Further information may be found on the Accommodation Services website.
Students' Union
The union provides, among other things, catering facilities, a chaplaincy, a medical clinic, an advice service on academic and welfare issues and a state of the art gym for students' use.
In October 2014, the union faced critical coverage, from student newspaper The Tab after voting down a proposal to commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day, with Education Officer Sarah El-alfy describing it as "Eurocentric" and "colonialist". El-alfy offered to help put forward a redrafted version of the motion for the following Student Assembly meeting. The Union issued a statement claiming "Redrafting motions and re-entering them at a later date isn't unusual in Students' Unions and shouldn't be misinterpreted as opposition."
In 2015 the student union Welfare and Diversity Officer, Bahar Mustafa, caused a public controversy by banning white people and men from a student union event. Bahar Mustafa caused more public controversy through her justification of the ban, and through her use of the hash tag #KillAllWhiteMen. A group of students petitioned for a vote of no confidence in her, but the petition was signed by less than 3% of the student body and therefore failed to trigger a referendum.
Notable alumni
Alumni of the Department of Art include:
Alumni of the Department of Music include:
Other alumni include:
- TV presenter Dave Myers
- DJ and producer SHERELLE
- Bollywood actor Kalki Koechlin
- Beatie Wolfe
- Graphic novelist Malik Sajad
- Mehmet Aksoy, film director and editor in chief of Kurdish Question
- Stathis Kefallonitis
- Brian Molko, lead singer of Placebo
- Alex James and Graham Coxon, founding members of the British rock band Blur
- Kathak dancer Nighat Chaudhry
See also
- Armorial of UK universities
- E-scape
- Forensic Architecture
- Goldsmiths CCA
- List of Goldsmiths College people
- List of universities in the UK