THE University of South Wales has slipped 11 places in a major league table, moving from 102nd in the UK to 113th.

Wales’ newest university was created in 2013 after Newport University and Glamorgan University in Cardiff merged into one, prompting the closure of Caerleon Campus.

It was ranked for the first time last year by the Guardian University Guide as one of 119 universities in the UK but failed to maintain its position this time, with only Trinity St David behind USW in overall Welsh rankings.

There were comparatively good performances for USW in some subjects, including those including geography and archaeology which were 43rd in the UK and media and film studies which were 55th in the UK.

A spokeswoman for the university said they had made major changes since the assessment and improvements would take a while to show up in the tables.

She said: “USW inherited a mixed position from its predecessor institutions when it comes to league tables. Although we do well on many indicators, on some our performance is not where we want it to be. Fundamentally, our position in the 2015 league tables is based on last year’s figures, and is a snapshot of our position before major initiatives in our curriculum, campus estate and student support have started to take effect.

“We fully expect that the work we are doing on key indicators will have an effect on future years’ league tables, but it will take a couple of years for this work to feed through into the rankings.”

The sixth largest university in the UK, the University of South Wales has around 33,500 students and campuses in Cardiff, Newport and Treforest.

Its creation came after a Welsh Government push to provide fewer, higher quality universities in Wales in a higher education shake-up.

There was a disappointing performance across Wales, with only three of the country’s eight universities (Swansea, Cardiff Metropolitan and Bangor) showing improvement.

Cardiff University, the only Russell Group establishment, fell one place to 27th.