Robert Gordon University

Robert Gordon University, commonly called RGU, is a public university in the city of Aberdeen, Scotland. It became a university in 1992, and originated from an educational institution founded in the 18th century by Robert Gordon, a prosperous Aberdeen merchant, and various institutions which provided adult and technical education in the 19th and early 20th centuries. It is one of two universities in the city, the other being the University of Aberdeen. RGU is a campus university and its single campus in Aberdeen is at Garthdee, in the south-west of the city. The university awards degrees in a wide range of disciplines from BA/BSc to PhD, primarily in professional, technical, health and artistic disciplines and those most applicable to business and industry. A number of traditional academic degree programmes are also offered, such as in the social sciences. In addition, the university's academic and research staff produce research in a number of areas. History The university derives from Robert Gordon's Hospital, an institution set up in the mid-18th century to provide the poor with a basic education and reasonable start in life, and the various educational institutions which developed in Aberdeen to provide adults with technical, vocational and artistic training, mostly in the evenings and part-time. Following numerous mergers between these establishments, it became Robert Gordon's Technical College in 1910, then following further developments became Robert Gordon's Institute of Technology in 1965 and began to conduct increasing amounts of research and provide degree-level education. It became a university in 1992, and now mostly offering day classes to full-time students. Unlike some modern universities in the UK which were created following the government reforms of 1992, it has never been a polytechnic, which were never part of the Scottish education system.