This covers costs incurred by academic departments including employing academics, departmental support staff and departmental operating costs.

This relates to money spent on providing student support services including, for example, the grant to support the Students’ Union, sports facilities, the careers service, health centre and bus service. This also relates to money spent on scholarships and bursaries awarded to students across the University. Examples of recruitment costs are the running of applicant visit days and the employment of the student admissions team.

This is expenditure incurred in providing the residence, catering and any conference operations, including the cost of maintenance of residential and catering premises, salaries and any other identifiable costs relating to these operations.

This is expenditure incurred on centralised academic services such as the library, learning resource centres, central computers, etc.

These are direct costs attributed to research grants and contracts.

This is expenditure incurred on central administration, staff and student facilities and amenities. It also includes general operating expenditure on items like office supplies, hospitality, conferences and telephones.

These are direct costs attributed to other services used by the University and any expenditure not already covered.

These funds represent fees charged to students for the programme they are undertaking. Different fees are charged depending on the level of study, subject and residency. However, the fee that a university can charge to an undergraduate who is classified as a home student, is capped by government policy.

This income represents funding received from various research councils and other external funding bodies.

The OfS distributes public money for higher education to universities and colleges in England.

The OfS funding supports:

• areas where teaching costs are particularly high.
• particular policy areas and government priorities (such as promoting equal opportunities).

The amount we receive for teaching is determined by the numbers and types of students that are enrolled with us.

However, OfS grants to the universities do not fully meet their costs: they make only a contribution towards teaching.

Research funding is currently provided by Research England, who support universities to achieve quality research and knowledge exchange through annual funding based on the 2014 Research Excellence Framework (REF) which reviews the quality of our work.  Universities can also apply for competitive funding, which is applied for and awarded on a one-off basis.

This income represents money from residences, catering, conferences and other services that the University offers to students, staff and the public.

This mainly represents income generated from the investment of money or other financial assets that have been bestowed on the University. This includes any trusts and foundations.

This covers costs incurred by various central administration teams including Finance, Legal, Human Resources, the Principal's Office and Strategic Planning. These teams play a key role in ensuring the effective organisation and management of the University. 

This includes teaching and seminar space and the maintenance of the campus (e.g. cleaning, utilities, security).

This includes expenditure on IT and Audio Visual systems, equipment, and staff who can support students and colleagues in using them.

This includes the library staff as well as the learning resources (i.e. books & periodicals).

This includes the student help desk and the School administration teams.

This includes Student Advisory & Wellbeing, Careers, Student Engagement and Sport. These teams play a key role in supporting all students during their time at the University.

This is a grant given by the University to the Students’ Union to support their activities.

This includes staff costs in academic departments (e.g. lecturers and professors) and running costs of Schools.

This includes our centrally funded student scholarships, awards and bursaries. Further information on our bursaries and scholarships can be found here.

This includes costs involved in curriculum development, review and learning technology. These areas play a key role in ensuring high quality and standards at the University.  

This includes general marketing costs, including advertising and campaigns.

This includes student recruitment and activities to widen access and participation. For further information about our widening access initiatives please visit.

In July 2021 Royal Holloway commissioned Biggar Economics to undertake an evaluation of the University’s economic impact. This took into account a range of inputs and outputs, plus consideration of the University’s impact within Runnymede, Surrey and nationally. The review considered the academic year 2019-20 as the latest year of complete data available, although it is clear that the latter part of this year was significantly affected by the global pandemic. The report also considered a comparison to the previous time such work was conducted (2014 reviewing the economic impact of the University in 2012-13). Finally, the review also considered the possible impact of the new 3 year strategic plan on our potential economic impact in the future.

Key findings of the report are that during 2019-20 Royal Holloway generated a significant contribution to the economy in each of the three regions:

• £190.8 million Gross Value Added (GVA) and 2760 jobs in Runnymede
• £221.3 million GVA and 3,030 jobs in Surrey and
• £657.1 million GVA and 7,150 jobs across the UK

You can download the full report here.

Definitions:

Gross Value Added: a measure of the monetary contribution that an organisation adds to the economy through its operations (rounded to the nearest 100) and Employment: measured in terms of headcount jobs supported (rounded to the nearest ten).

The role played by universities in economic development has long been recognised. As generators of research and development they play a central role in supporting industry clusters and make a significant contribution to economic growth.

Biggar Economics used a tried and trusted framework to undertake their analysis which included taking into account information from across the University and a range of publicly available data. Qualitative interviews with key stakeholders were also undertaken to inform the report.

The University continually invests money in improvements for current and futures students in a variety of ways whilst ensuring that we remain sustainable.

Here you can see a timeline, highlighting some of the key investment projects the University has undertaken in recent years. 

Royal Holloway, University of London is fully committed to responsible investment.

For us, this means managing environmental, social and governance (ESG) risks and opportunities for our investments and using our influence to encourage better practices within companies we invest in, and investing in business delivering new, sustainable products and services.

Find out more here.