Falmouth University: Our year of transformation

12 September 2025

Type: Text

Category: University news, Innovation

Falmouth University has been shortlisted as Specialist Institution of the Year 2025 in the Times Higher Education Awards, recognising Falmouth as a place drawing on its 120-year art school heritage to push the boundaries of creativity and technology.

Under the headline “Falmouth University: a year of transformation”, we highlighted three initiatives driving resilience, innovation and long-term impact in education, research, knowledge exchange and civic life:

The Centre for Blended Realities: pioneering new disciplines at the intersection of creativity and immersive technologies.
The Academy of Continuing Education: expanding access to high-quality learning via accessible and on-demand courses.
Falmouth Launchpad Futures: supporting local businesses and the regional economy to thrive.

Guided by a bold vision and strong leadership, we’re tackling global challenges with clarity and purpose, using creativity and technology to benefit our students, our region and beyond, on our path as the university for creativity and technology. From landmark research projects to global recognition in games and filmmaking, this year has demonstrated Falmouth as a place for transformation, and a true Specialist University.

The focus on and inclusion of the Centre for Blended Realities reflects Falmouth’s status as a leader in art and design research, with the University recognised by Research England as delivering world-leading or internationally excellent research. This research intensity is growing; this September we welcome 39 doctoral students - up from nine in 2022.

The Centre for Blended Realities has also welcomed new professors this year, with backgrounds in delivering impactful research across a variety of sectors, including healthcare and wellbeing. Their pioneering research will explore how new technology can help individuals and businesses use creative approaches and innovative design thinking to change their approaches and improve services and products for our culture and society.

ATTUNE project video

Research impact: improving health and wellbeing

Beyond the initiatives featured in the submission, this summer marked the culmination of the current phase our groundbreaking ATTUNE research project, in partnership with The University of Oxford. The project combined science and art to understand the impact on young people’s mental health following adverse childhood experiences and resulted in co-developed arts-based care interventions such as supportive games and writing exercises.

Accolades and ranking success for film and games

Meanwhile, more than 30 students from our Film and Television courses were part of the crew of Rose of Nevada, the latest highly anticipated feature film from BAFTA-winning writer and director and Falmouth’s Distinguished Professor of Film Practice Mark Jenkin. The film made its world premiere last month at the Venice Film Festival, and features globally renowned actors George McKay and Callum Turner.

The film was supported by Falmouth University’s Sound/Image Cinema Lab, a research and education project that provides Falmouth’s School of Film and Television students with opportunities to work on professional film productions. The students took on roles in production design, lighting, post-production, and more.

Earlier this year our Games Academy was once again recognised as one of the world’s top institutions for game design, climbing four places to 1st in England, 2nd in Europe and 13th globally in The Princeton Review’s list of Top 50 Undergraduate Schools for Game Design in 2025. Five students from the Games Academy and the School of Film & Television also reached the finals of this year’s Rookies awards, an international platform that celebrates emerging talent in games, animation, visual effects and design.

In addition to the undergraduate success, Falmouth also improved in the global postgraduate rankings, placed at number 11 for postgraduate game design study globally - up from 14th in 2024 - and now ranks second outside the United States.