Robert Gordon University - Garthdee campus the Pitfodels estate which had been divided up and sold in the 19th century. It has had a number of uses, and was owned by Aberdeen City Council until the university purchased it in stages beginning in 1996. When the Robert Gordon University achieved university status in 1992, it had numerous small campuses scattered around the city of Aberdeen, often consisting of one or two buildings each housing a single department; many (but not all) of these buildings were of low quality. Its largest campus, Schoolhill in Aberdeen city centre, was still shared with Robert Gordon's College. The university's Vice-Principal
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