Robert Gordon University applied arts and design, and architecture. In addition, the university's academic and research staff produce world-class research in a number of areas. RGU is a campus university and its single campus in Aberdeen is at Garthdee, in the south-west suburbs of the city amid parkland on the banks of the River Dee. The university also operates an Administration Building in Aberdeen city centre, at Schoolhill. Until summer 2013 a second campus was also located here and at St. Andrew Street nearby, but this campus has now closed apart from the Administration Building, which is to be retained. Academic departments located
Robert Gordon University future of UK higher education recommended major expansion, which led to the renaming of the institution to Robert Gordon's Institute of Technology to suggest its increasing role in higher education rather than further education. As well as new "plate-glass" universities, reforms following the report created the polytechnics in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. It also created the Council for National Academic Awards (CNAA) to allow non-university institutions (like the polytechnics and Scottish central institutions) to run programmes that graduated students with CNAA degrees. The Institute's first CNAA degree programmes began in pharmacy in 1967, then in engineering, chemistry and physics