Institute of Technology - United Kingdom

United Kingdom

Polytechnics were tertiary education teaching institutions in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Polytechnics offered university equivalent degrees (bachelor's, master's, PhD) validated at the national level by the UK Council for National Academic Awards CNAA. They particularly excelled in engineering and applied science degree courses similar to technological universities in the USA and continental Europe. The comparable institutions in Scotland were collectively referred to as Central Institutions. Britain's first Polytechnic, the Royal Polytechnic Institution later known as the Polytechnic of Central London (now the University of Westminster) was established in 1838 at Regent Street in London and its goal was to educate and popularize engineering and scientific knowledge and inventions in Victorian Britain.

In 1956, some colleges of technology received the designation College of Advanced Technology. They became universities in the 1960s. The designation "Institute of Technology" was occasionally used by polytechnics (Bolton), Central Institutions (Dundee, Robert Gordon's), and postgraduate universities, (Cranfield and Wessex), most of which later adopted the designation University, and there were two "Institutes of Science and Technology": UMIST and UWIST of the University of Wales. Loughborough University was called Loughborough University of Technology from 1966 to 1996, the only institution in the UK to have had such a designation.