The Bloomsbury Colleges

The Bloomsbury Colleges (TBC) group was set up in 2004 and consists of the following six colleges of the University of London: Birkbeck, the Institute of Education, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, the Royal Veterinary College, the School of Oriental and African Studies and The School of Pharmacy. The aim of the group is to collaborate together in academic administrative matters so as to avoid unnecessary duplication of effort and to gain the benefits of critical mass whilst maintaining the independence to pursue specialist missions. Such collaboration enhances the capacity of the institutions to provide support, deliver services and create opportunities of professional advancement for the support and service staff in the six institutions. The physical proximity of the colleges is a key factor in facilitating contact and enabling shared facilities where relevant.

The management survey which led to the founding of TBC was funded by the Higher Education Funding Council for England and identified a range of activities where the six institutions could do things better collaboratively than independently and many of these are administrative. The six were collaborating in academic areas before the group was formed but new areas of cooperation have been identified including the provision of jointly supervised PhD scholarships which will be available from September 2007.

In July 2006, a paper on Shared Services in Higher Education commented that TBC and another consortium “provide good examples of how institutions can co-operate on matters of mutual interest whilst retaining their integrity and independence.”

More information about the collaborations may be obtained from TBC’s Co-Ordinator, Katharine Bock, tbc@bloomsbury.ac.uk.

View maps showing the locations of the Bloomsbury Colleges in central London.

The Bloomsbury Colleges Report