As the Coronation Weekend approaches, the University joins the nation in preparing to celebrate the Coronation of His Majesty The King and Her Majesty The Queen Consort at Westminster Abbey on Saturday 6 May, 2023.
We warmly congratulate HRH King Charles III and HRH Queen Camilla and will be hosting a celebratory event on campus on Friday 5 May open to all our community, friends and family.
The University is honoured to have close links with the Royal Family, particularly through our Chancellor, His Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh Prince Edward.
HRH The Duke of Edinburgh took up the role on 1 August 2013 and was officially installed as our fifth Chancellor at a formal ceremony in Bath Abbey. The site of Bath Abbey holds a special significance for the Coronation, hosting the coronation of Edgar, ‘First King of All England’ on 11 May 973 AD. The same service has been used at every coronation since and in 1973 Queen Elizabeth II visited the Abbey for a service to mark 1,000 years since the coronation of Edgar.
Bath Abbey will broadcast the Coronation live at 11am and a Coronation Peal will be rung at the end of the service. Those in the congregation will be able to watch the service to the backdrop of Edgar’s coronation, marked in one of the Abbey’s stained-glass windows.
Her late Majesty met with our academics and students several times: visiting the campus with HRH Duke of Edinburgh in 2002 as part of her Golden Jubilee tour; our academics presented their research to her during a Diamond Jubilee visit to Bristol in 2012; and most recently in 2019 learning about our research into reducing horseracing-related injuries as part of a royal visit to Somerset.
The University was honoured by Her Majesty in the Queen’s Anniversary Prize in 2012 in recognition of our high impact research into child poverty and support for vulnerable people.
Staff and students can find out more about local events by visiting the Coronation webpages where you can also add your own event to an online map. You can get involved by joining The Big Lunch which hopes to bring neighbours and communities together to share friendship, food and fun.
Starting on Monday 8 May The Big Help Out is encouraging people to mark the Coronation by lending a hand to volunteer in local communities across the country.
In 2019 University spin-out company, Bath ASU, received the prestigious Queen’s Award for Enterprise and Innovation for its development of technologies that extend the shelf-life of cancer drugs; and in 2022, University spin-out CiteAb and Storm Consultancy, which was founded by University of Bath graduates, were both recipients of the Queen's Award for Enterprise, again in the Innovation category.