Graduations continued at the University of Ulster’s Coleraine campus today when students from the Faculty of Computing and Engineering, the Ulster Business School and the Faculty of Arts received their degrees and certificates.

Built in the 1960s as the headquarters of the New University of Ulster, the Coleraine campus is home to over 5500 students – almost double the number in 1984, when the New University of Ulster merged with the Ulster Polytechnic to form the present University of Ulster.

The campus is home to the Centre for Molecular Biosciences, a world leading biomedical research institute which was ranked second in the UK in the last Research Assessment Exercise in 2008, the new SAAD Centre for Pharmacy and the Confucius Institute of the University of Ulster which was formally launched by China’s most senior woman politician Madame Liu Yandong in April 2012.

The University has over 24,000 students in total, and has an annual turnover of over £200m. With over 3700 employees across its four campuses, it is one of Northern Ireland’s largest employers.

The morning ceremony saw the honorary degree of Doctor of Science (DSc) awarded to Paul Adrian Smith in recognition of his services to media and enterprise.

At the afternoon ceremony students from the Faculty of Arts received their awards and Edmund Russell Curran received the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters (DLitt), in recognition of his services to journalism.