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The Bartlett School of Architecture Education

Promise ; Master’s degree, MSci at UCL, England, UK – new accelerated model

11 Nov 2019

The Bartlett Promise

World’s top built environment faculty launches £1.2m Promise to diversify the sector

Monday 11th November 2019 – UCL’s Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment today launches The Bartlett Promise to offer scholarships worth a total of £1.2 million per year to students from under-represented backgrounds.

The Bartlett Promise is a long-term project to attract students from a broader range of backgrounds to tackle the lack of diversity in the sector.

The scholarships are the first stage in the Promise project, and will cover students’ fees, living and study costs for the duration of their degree. For the first year of the Promise, the scholarships are open to students from the UK and EU countries applying to undergraduate degrees in The Bartlett School of Architecture, School of Planning and School of Construction and Project Management.

Bartlett School, UCL, London:

photo : Jack Hobhouse

Scholars will also receive mentoring, personal support and careers advice throughout their studies. Over the next few years, The Promise scholarships will grow to cover all schools and departments of The Bartlett at all levels of study including international applicants.

The Bartlett Promise will help to tackle the lack of diversity within the built environment. According to data compiled in 2019 by the Royal Town Planning Institute from the Office for National Statistics’ Annual Population Survey[1], 59% of planners, 75% of architects and 87% of chartered surveyors are male.

Practitioners from a BAME background make up 3-4% of planning professionals, 9% of architects and 4% of chartered surveyors, even though UK Census data from 2011 shows that 14% of the UK population identifies as coming from a minority ethnic background.[2]

“Society works for everyone when it is shaped by everyone, but right now that’s not happening,” commented Professor Christoph Lindner, Dean of The Bartlett, Faculty of the Built Environment. “We know that the cost of education is a very real barrier for many – The Bartlett Promise will help to address that by removing this barrier to entry whilst providing additional support.

“There are also young people out there whose experience and perspective we desperately need, who never think of applying to The Bartlett because they’ve never met an architect or a planner, a computer scientist or an engineer.

“That’s why, in the next stages of our Promise, we’re investigating how to reach out to primary and secondary schools to help young people understand what the built environment is and how they could play a part in shaping it.”

To qualify for a scholarship, applicants must have a low household income**, but The Bartlett will also look at other criteria, and expects applicants to meet several of them – these include being an ethnic minority, being a care leaver, having been eligible for free school meals, having a disability and living in a neighbourhood that is among the 20% most deprived with a low progression rate to higher education, based on data from the Office for Students’ Participation of Local Areas (POLAR).

“The Promise is about much more than the award itself and its holders, it is a promise to do better by people who are marginalised and made unwelcome in the built environment and its study,” commented Dr Kamna Patel, Vice-Dean Equality, Diversity and Inclusion at The Bartlett.

“The Promise shines a light on how higher education and built environment professions exclude certain voices and experiences. This impacts how urban areas and urbanisation are imagined and planned for. We intend to change that.”

The scholarship will initially be open to students applying for nine of The Bartlett’s undergraduate courses. In the first pilot year, up to 10 places will be offered, with this increasing following further funding to 10% of the student population over the following 10 years.

Professor Michael Arthur, UCL President & Provost, said: “The Bartlett has always sought to think radically and to push boundaries. The Promise reflects these traditions in the interests of building a better future. By helping scholarship recipients to study and enter the sector, we are aiming to diversify the environment with which we all interact. Through the Promise, we want to make the built environment profession more inclusive and more representative of the society it works for.”

The Bartlett will introduce further initiatives over the next 10 years as part of The Promise, including new efforts to continue diversifying staff and provide staff training on unconscious bias, leading on diversity, awareness training for inclusion and bespoke training that will be designed in house specifically for The Bartlett Promise.

Footnotes:
[1] https://www.rtpi.org.uk/knowledge/research/projects/the-planning-profession/30-demographics/#Professions
[2] https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/uk-population-by-ethnicity/national-and-regional-populations/population-of-england-and-wales/latest

** UCL uses £42,875 as the low household income upper limit for its bursary scheme: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/prospective-students/scholarships/undergraduate/hebss_nsp/
This is also the upper limit used by many other UK universities for their bursary schemes:
https://www.thecompleteuniversityguide.co.uk/media/5244026/england_university_bursary_and_scholarship_grid_2019.pdf
This figure will be used as a guide alongside other financial factors including the number of dependents per household.

The Bartlett Promise is part of Bartlett 100, a year-long celebration of the centenary of the naming of Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment. 2019 marks 100 years since Sir Herbert Henry Bartlett, a civil engineer and building contractor, consented to the department being renamed in his honour at UCL after he founded chairs in the School of Architecture and the School of Planning. Today, The Bartlett is a globally-active faculty that brings together 12 Schools and Institutes that train new professionals for careers in the built environment, studies the global impact of their activity and sets the agenda for the future development of the sector.

Undergraduate courses eligible for The Bartlett Promise, September 2020 entry

The Bartlett School of Architecture
Architecture BSc (ARB/RIBA Part 1)
Architecture MSci
Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies BSc
Engineering & Architectural Design MEng

The Bartlett School of Construction and Project Management
Project Management for Construction BSc
Project Management for Construction (Sandwich year) BSc

The Bartlett School of Planning
Urban Planning and Real Estate BSc
Urban Planning, Design and Management BSc
Urban Studies BSc

4 Apr 2019

The Bartlett School of Architecture Education Model

The Bartlett launches a new accelerated model for architectural education –
a five-year integrated Architecture MSci

The Bartlett School of Architecture is launching an integrated Master’s degree, Architecture MSci, which compresses the ‘3 + 2’ Part 1 and 2 route to five consecutive years including a final year on placement.

The programme is currently seeking ARB Prescription and RIBA Candidate Status for Part 1 and Part 2 accreditation, and will open for applications this October

A radical alternative to the current model of architectural education, Architecture MSci offers career acceleration for students and responds to the industry’s need for architecture graduates who are both the initiators of building designs and effective members of the building team. The news comes following the announcement that the Bartlett has been ranked as the No.1 institution in the world for the study of architecture and the built environment by the QS World Rankings by Subject.

The new degree integrates the development of architectural design skills with an understanding of the complex social and technical environments in which buildings are produced and will run in parallel with the school’s esteemed Architecture BSc (ARB/RIBA Part 1) and MArch (ARB/RIBA Part 2), amongst other programmes. Students will explore and research design and construction challenges facing the future of the built environment, learning how to incorporate specialist disciplinary information with sophisticated designs.

The integration of a placement in the final year provides the opportunity for students to learn about architectural practice first-hand. Architecture MSci will give students looking to achieve Part 1 and 2 accreditation the potential to accelerate their education, increase their earning power at an earlier stage of their career and save a substantial proportion of tuition and living costs.

Professor Bob Sheil, Director of The Bartlett School of Architecture:

“We’re proud to be taking a fresh approach to training tomorrow’s architects and responding to the need for alternative routes to registration. This programme reinforces our commitment as a school to training graduates for world-leading practices, responding to the global challenges of our time.“

Sara Shafiei, Acting Programme Director:

“This programme is designed for students who have unwavering conviction that they want to design and build, study, and practice architecture as registered architects. I look forward to meeting the first cohort in 2020.”

The Bartlett School of Architecture in London : news & events

Programme details

The full degree details are available to view here: www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/architecture/programmes/undergraduate/architecture-msci

13 Mar 2019
New Dean of The Bartlett School of Architecture

Professor Alan Penn, Dean of The Bartlett:

photograph : Michael Chapman

The Bartlett School of Architecture / UCL

Located in: University College London
Address: Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL Faculty of the Built Environment, Wates House, 22 Gordon St, Bloomsbury, London WC1H 0QB, UK
Phone: +44 20 7679 2000