page_title: Bangor University
section_title: Name change
hierarchical_section_title: Bangor University / History / Name change
context_page_description: Bangor University is a university in Bangor, Wales. It received its Royal Charter in 1885 and was one of the founding institutions of the federal University of Wales. Officially known as University College of North Wales, and later University of Wales, Bangor, in 2007 it became Bangor University, independent from the University of Wales.
context_section_description: The change of name to Bangor University, or Prifysgol Bangor in Welsh, was instigated by the university following the decision of the University of Wales to change from a federal university to a confederal non-membership organisation, and the granting of degree-awarding powers to Bangor University itself. As a result, every student starting after 2009 gained a degree from Bangor University, while any student who started before 2009 had the option to have either Bangor University or University of Wales Bangor on their degree certificate.
  Under John Hughes's leadership as Vice-Chancellor, there were a number of new developments including the opening of St Mary's Student Village, and the first ever collaboration between Wales and China to establish a new college, which involved Bangor University and the Central South University of Forestry and Technology (CSUFT).
  In 2014, Hughes attracted £45m of financing from the European Investment Bank, to assist the university in developing its estates strategy.
  In 2016, the university opened Marine Centre Wales, a £5.5m building on the site of the university's Ocean Sciences campus in Menai Bridge, which was financed as part of the £25 million SEACAMS project, part funded through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).
  In May 2017, Bangor became the fourth Welsh university to review its cost base with a view to making savings of £8.5m. The university responded and introduced a number of cost saving measures including the introduction of a voluntary severance scheme, and the numbers of jobs at risk was reduced from the initial estimate of 170. In addressing its financial challenges, Bangor University also reorganised some subject areas in 2017, which involved introducing new ways of co-ordinating and delivering adult education and part-time degree programmes, continuing to teach archaeology, but discontinuing the single honours course, and working with Grwp Llandrillo Menai to validate the BA Fine Art degree.
  Other issues which attracted adverse media comment included the cost overrun and delayed opening of the Pontio Arts and Innovation Centre in 2016, the appointment of Hughes's then wife to a newly created senior management position, the purchase and refurbishment of a house for the vice-chancellor by the university (costing the institution £750,000), the expenses of some senior staff, and the discrepancy between senior management salaries and remuneration for staff working on zero hour contracts. In 2016, Hughes received a 7.5% pay rise and the university confirmed that this was the first increase that the vice-chancellor had received from the university's remuneration committee (of which Hughes himself was a member) since his appointment in 2010, although he would still have received an annual pay rise.
  From Hughes's takeover in 2010, when Bangor University made a £4.2 million profit, to 2017, the university's nominal income had risen by 12 per cent, but their expenditures by 19 per cent with the university's interests and finance costs (despite very low interest rates) soaring by 747 per cent. In early 2019, an accountant who studied the university's finances on behalf of trade union criticised that the figures suggested spending had been diverted from staff costs to financing building projects. When a new financial crisis as well as allegations of Hughes's racist and sexist harassment against his ex-wife were revealed in late 2018 and the announced closure of the chemistry department and new staff cuts sparked student protest, Bangor University announced Hughes's resignation by December 2018, eight months ahead of his ordinary retirement.
caption: Main Arts and other Bangor University buildings from Bangor Mountain
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