Former Sunday Times and Guardian journalist Peter Cole is leaving the University of Central Lancashire, Preston, to head the journalism department at Sheffield University.

Mr Cole (54) will see out the academic year at Preston and take up his new post in the summer, succeeding former Observer editor Donald Trelford (62), who will stay on part-time.

Mr Cole’s successor at Preston has yet to be chosen.

Mr Trelford launched the journalism studies department at Sheffield in 1994 and says it has become so successful that it needs a full-time head.

He said he would continue to be associated with the department, possibly as chairman or in a consultative role, and would still lecture, but the change would allow him to devote more time to other interests.

“I am delighted that Peter Cole will be continuing what we have tried to do at Sheffield,” he said. “I am very pleased that someone with his professional background should follow me in this role.”

Mr Cole’s journalism career included four years as deputy editor of The Guardian and three as editor of the Sunday Times’ Night Review. He is a board member of the National Council for the Training of Journalists.

He said there were “no negatives” about his departure from Preston, where the journalism department has undergone “enormous expansion” since his appointment as head in 1993.

There are now four graduate and three postgraduate programmes, covering journalism and public relations, as well as a new MA course in online journlaism.

The number of students has risen from 250 to 650 and the university topped last year’s Guardian league table of journalism colleges. Government inspectors rated it as “excellent”.

“It’s a very good team here and it was an extremely difficult decision to take,” he said. “I’m extremely keen on this place and I think it’s a university that’s on the move.

“But this is the longest I’ve ever done a single job and it’s a new challenge and a chance to recharge.

“Sheffield is an impressive university. The research element is strong there and I’m quite keen to do more research than I’ve had time to do here.

“I think it’s an opportunity to to take Sheffield forward and to develop it so that it has the same kind of reputation within the industry that Preston has.”

Getting students into work has always been top of Mr Cole’s agenda and he said he was proud of the university’s record, which derived from its strong links with the industry.

Mr Trelford, too, has drawn on a lifetime’s experience and contacts in newspapers in an effort to make journalism courses relevant to the industry’s needs. He was editor of the Observer for 18 years, during which it was twice named Newspaper of the Year. He remains a freelance writer and broadcaster, contributing a weekly sports column to the Daily Telegraph, and was recently appointed president of the Media Society.

He has arranged for many old newspaper friends to talk to students and there are placements with, and research for, the Press Association, as well as strong links with the Daily Telegraph and regional titles in Yorkshire.

The university’s BA and MA courses – including one in political communication – currently involve more than 80 students, with undergraduate courses attracting 22 applicants per place.

Mr Trelford said that since arriving at Sheffield, he had striven to dispel the old view that media courses were irrelevant to the industry.

“What I found was that the study of the media was really of no interest to the profession because it seemed so remote from their concerns and it also seemed to be conducted by people with hostility towards the media.

“I set myself out to be a bridge between the academic world and the profession, by providing the sort of training that the profession would respect and providing research they would think was relevant to their work, and I think there are signs that that is working.

He added: “At a time when so many newspaper groups are giving up their own training for reasons of economy, I think it is more important than ever that we are able to send them students who have had at least a partial professional training.”

He revealed that he had recently been offered the role of dean of the school of journalism at the University of Colorado but had turned it down.

“It’s rather too far from Lord’s and Twickenham for me,” he said, “but I will probably do quite a bit of teaching there.”

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