University of Portsmouth of Portsmouth won a £272,000 award from the Education and Training Foundation to research how best to deliver study programmes in the UK. In 2016, Dr Victoria Wang and Professor Mark Button, of the Institute of Criminal Justice Studies, were awarded £299,355 by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council to investigate unintended consequences of data release, including those associated with issues of trust, identity, privacy and security. The project is in partnership with Swansea University's Department of Computer Science, the DVLA and other government agencies. The University of Portsmouth is one of only four universities in the south east
University of the People Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET), warned the public of a fraudulent university, University of the People. The university started its next semester with the President of the University of the People visiting Johannesburg , instead the government thought the university has setup to operate within South Africa, which they have not applied for the necessary accreditation. Few days later the South African government withdrew its comments due to the misunderstanding. In 2017 Olympian Simone Biles became a student and a spokeswoman for the school, and in 2018 she set up a scholarship fund to help financially struggling students.