University of Surrey

The University of Surrey is a public research university located within the county town of Guildford, Surrey, in the South East of England, United Kingdom. The university specializes in science, engineering, medicine and business. It received its charter on 9 September 1966, and was previously situated near Battersea Park in south-west London. The institution was known as Battersea College of Technology before gaining university status. Its roots, however, go back to the Battersea Polytechnic Institute, founded in 1891 to provide further and higher education for London's poorer inhabitants.
The university conducts research on small satellites and has a high number of staff who are members of learned societies. The university has recently expanded into China by launching the Surrey International Institute with Dongbei University of Finance and Economics.
The university's main campus is located on Stag Hill close to the centre of Guildford and adjacent to Guildford Cathedral. A second campus, at Manor Park, is located a short distance away and has been developed to expand upon existing accommodation, academic buildings and sporting facilities.
The university is a major centre for satellite and mobile communications research. In March 2014, the British Prime Minister David Cameron announced a partnership between the University of Surrey, King's College London and the University of Dresden for the development of 5G technology. The university is a member of the Association of MBAs, the European University Association and Association of Commonwealth Universities. The University is ranked consistently high by The Times, the Guardian and the Sunday Times. According to the figures revealed by the Higher Education Statistics Agency 2013/14, the University of Surrey has the fourth highest percentage of graduates entering employment and/or further study within six months of graduation at 96.9% (behind Lancaster University, Robert Gordon University and Arts University Bournemouth) — higher than the University of Oxford (92.6%) and the University of Cambridge (95.2%).
The university has 10 Fellows of the Royal Society, 21 Fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering, one Fellow of the British Academy and 6 Fellows of the Academy of Social Sciences.

History

Battersea Polytechnic Institute

The University of Surrey was preceded by the Battersea Polytechnic Institute which was founded in 1891 and admitted its first students in 1894. Its aims were to provide greater access to further and higher education for some of the "poorer inhabitants" of London.
In 1901, Evening Classes consisted of some of the following; Mechanical Engineering and Building, Electrical Engineering, Chemical and other Trades, Physics and Natural Science, Maths, Languages, and Commercial subjects, Music. Special classes for Women in Domestic Economy subjects. Day Classes in Art, Science, Women's subjects and Gymnastics. Classes in preparation for University and Professional Examinations. Also. Science day School for Boys and Girls, Commercial School for Girls, Training School for Domestic Economy and Training for Teachers.
The Institute focused on science and technology subjects, and from about 1920 taught some classes for University of London students. The Institute awarded University of London external degrees.

Battersea College of Technology

In 1956, the Institute was among the first to receive the designation "College of Advanced Technology" and was renamed Battersea College of Technology. By the beginning of the sixties, the College had virtually outgrown its building in Battersea and had decided to move to Guildford. In addition to this, the Robbins Report of 1963 proposed that the Colleges of Advanced Technology, including Battersea, should expand and become degree-awarding universities.
In 1965, the university-designate acquired a greenfield site in Guildford from Guildford Cathedral, Guildford Borough Council and the Onslow Village Trust.
One notorious alumnus was Lord Haw-Haw

University

On 9 September 1966 the University of Surrey was established by Royal Charter and by 1970 the move from Battersea to Guildford was complete.
Early visitors to the new campus were Led Zeppelin, who performed their very first gig at the university on 15 October 1968.
Between 1982 and 2008, the university became the trustee of the building of the Guildford Institute, using parts of the building for its adult education programme ad providing a university presence in the heart of Guildford. The Assessment and Qualifications Alliance (formerly Associated Examining Board) moved from Aldershot to its own headquarters building on the Stag Hill campus in 1985.
The university marked its Silver Jubilee in 1991, an event celebrated by the publishing of Surrey – The Rise of a Modern University by Roy Douglas and by a Service of Thanksgiving in Guildford Cathedral attended by HM The Queen in March 1992.
The university celebrated its 35th anniversary year in May 2002 with a major event in Guildford Cathedral. It was also marked by the unveiling of the Surrey Scholar sculpture (by Allan Sly FBS) to mark the Golden Jubilee of Her Majesty The Queen and as a gift to the people of Guildford. The Surrey Scholar is located at the bottom of Guildford High Street. Understanding the Real World, a visual history of the university, by Christopher Pick, was published to coincide with this anniversary.
In 2007, the university saw a major increase in overall applications by 39% compared with the previous year. This was followed by a further increase in applications of 12% in 2008.
In October 2008, the university lost out to Royal Holloway in a bid to merge with London medical institute St George's, University of London.
From September 2009, the Guildford School of Acting became a subsidiary of the university and relocated from Guildford town centre to the university campus.

Governance
On 1 July 2005, Christopher Snowden became Surrey's fourth Vice-Chancellor and Chief Executive. Like his predecessors Dowling and Kelly, Snowden is a Fellow of the Royal Society.

University of Strathclyde

The University of Strathclyde is a Scottish public research university located in Glasgow, United Kingdom. It is Glasgow's second university by age, being founded in 1796 as the Andersonian Institute, and receiving its Royal Charter in 1964 as the UK's first technological university. It takes its name from the historic Kingdom of Strathclyde.

The University of Strathclyde is Scotland's third largest university by number of students, with students and staff from over 100 countries. The institution was awarded University of the Year 2012 and Entrepreneurial University of the year 2013 by Times Higher Education.

Entry into many of the courses in the university is competitive and successful entrants in 2015 had an average of 473 UCAS points. This means that successful applicants to Strathclyde have the 3rd highest average score in Scotland (above the University of Glasgow), and is ranked 12th overall in the UK. It is also one of the 39 old universities in the UK comprising the distinctive second cluster of elite universities after Oxbridge.

Imperial College London

Imperial College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom. It was founded by Prince Albert who envisioned an area composed of the Natural History Museum, Victoria and Albert Museum, Royal Albert Hall and the Imperial Institute. The Imperial Institute was opened by his wife, Queen Victoria, who laid the first stone. In 1907, Imperial College London was formed by Royal Charter, and soon joined the University of London, with a focus on science and technology. The college has expanded its coursework to medicine through mergers with St Mary's Hospital. In 2004, Queen Elizabeth II opened the Imperial College Business School. Imperial became an independent university from the University of London during its one hundred year anniversary.

Imperial is organised into faculties of science, engineering, medicine and business. Its main campus is located in South Kensington, adjacent to Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens in central London. The university formed the first academic health science centre in the United Kingdom. Imperial is a member of the Russell Group, G5, Association of Commonwealth Universities, League of European Research Universities, and the "Golden Triangle" of British universities.

Imperial is included among the best universities in the world by numerous university rankings. According to The New York Times, recruiters consider its students among the top ten most valuable graduates in the world, receiving the highest salaries of any UK university. Imperial faculty and alumni include 15 Nobel laureates, 2 Fields Medalists, 70 Fellows of the Royal Society, 82 Fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering and 78 Fellows of the Academy of Medical Sciences.

University College London

University College London (UCL) is a public research university in London, England and a constituent college of the federal University of London. Established in 1826 as London University by founders inspired by the radical ideas of Jeremy Bentham, UCL was the first university institution established in London and the earliest in England to be entirely secular, admitting students regardless of their religion. It also makes the disputed claim to have been the first to admit women on equal terms with men. UCL's push for non-Anglicans to be allowed to take university degrees was one of the driving factors behind the establishment of the University of London in 1836, when UCL become one of the two colleges affiliated to the University at its foundation. In recent years it has grown through mergers, including with the Institute of Neurology (in 1997), the Royal Free Hospital Medical School (in 1998), the Eastman Dental Institute (in 1999), the School of Slavonic and East European Studies (in 1999), the School of Pharmacy (in 2012) and the Institute of Education (in 2014). UCL is the largest higher education institution in London and the largest postgraduate institution in the UK by enrollment and is regarded as one of the leading multidisciplinary research universities in the world.

UCL's main campus is located in the Bloomsbury area of central London, with a number of institutes and teaching hospitals elsewhere in central London and satellite campuses in Adelaide, Australia and Doha, Qatar. UCL is organised into 11 constituent faculties, within which there are over 100 departments, institutes and research centres. UCL is responsible for several museums and collections in a wide range of fields, including the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology and the Grant Museum of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy. As of 2014, UCL had around 28,000 students and 11,000 staff (including around 6,000 academic staff and 980 professors) and had a total income of £1.18 billion in 2014/15, of which £427.5 million was from research grants and contracts UCL is a member of numerous academic organisations and is part of UCL Partners, the world's largest academic health science centre, and the 'golden triangle' of elite English universities.

UCL is one of the most selective British universities and ranks highly in national and international league tables. UCL's graduates are ranked among the most employable by international employers and its alumni include the "Father of the Nation" of each of India, Kenya and Mauritius, founders of Ghana, modern Japan and Nigeria, the inventor of the telephone, and one of the co-discoverers of the structure of DNA. UCL academics have contributed to major advances in several disciplines; all five of the naturally-occurring noble gases were discovered at UCL by William Ramsay, the vacuum tube was invented by UCL graduate John Ambrose Fleming while a faculty of UCL and several foundational advances in modern statistics were made at UCL's statistical science department founded by Karl Pearson. There are 32 Nobel Prize winners and three Fields Medalists amongst UCL's alumni and current and former staff.

The University of Oxford

The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university located in Oxford, England. While having no known date of foundation, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the world's second-oldest surviving university. It grew rapidly from 1167 when Henry II banned English students from attending the University of Paris. After disputes between students and Oxford townsfolk in 1209, some academics fled northeast to Cambridge where they established what became the University of Cambridge. The two "ancient universities" are frequently jointly referred to as "Oxbridge".

The university is made up of a variety of institutions, including 38 constituent colleges and a full range of academic departments which are organised into four divisions. All the colleges are self-governing institutions as part of the university, each controlling its own membership and with its own internal structure and activities. Being a city university, it does not have a main campus; instead, all the buildings and facilities are scattered throughout the city centre. Most undergraduate teaching at Oxford is organised around weekly tutorials at the self-governing colleges and halls, supported by classes, lectures and laboratory work provided by university faculties and departments.

Oxford is the home of several notable scholarships, including the Clarendon Scholarship which was launched in 2001and the Rhodes Scholarship which has brought graduate students to study at the university for more than a century. The university operates the largest university press in the world and the largest academic library system in the United Kingdom. Oxford has educated many notable alumni, including 27 Nobel laureates, 26 British prime ministers (most recently David Cameron, the incumbent) and many foreign heads of state.

University of Cambridge

The University of Cambridge is a collegiate public research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, Cambridge is the second oldest university in the English-speaking world and the world's fourth-oldest surviving university. It grew out of an association of scholars who left the University of Oxford after a dispute with the townspeople. The two ancient universities share many common features and are often jointly referred to as "Oxbridge".

Cambridge is formed from a variety of institutions which include 31 constituent colleges and over 100 academic departments organised into six schools. The university occupies buildings throughout the city, many of which are of historical importance. The colleges are self-governing institutions founded as integral parts of the university. In the year ended 31 July 2015, the university had a total income of £1.638 billion, of which £397 million was from research grants and contracts. The central university and colleges have a combined endowment of around £5.89 billion, the largest of any university outside the United States. Cambridge is a member of many associations and forms part of the "golden triangle" of leading English universities and Cambridge University Health Partners, an academic health science centre. The university is closely linked with the development of the high-tech business cluster known as "Silicon Fen".

Students' learning involves lectures and laboratory sessions organised by departments, and supervisions provided by the colleges. The university operates eight arts, cultural, and scientific museums, including the Fitzwilliam Museum and a botanic garden. Cambridge's libraries hold a total of around 15 million books, 8 million of which are in Cambridge University Library which is a legal deposit library. Cambridge University Press, a department of the university, is the world's oldest publishing house and the second-largest university press in the world. Cambridge is regularly included among the world's best and most reputable universities by most university rankings. Beside academic studies, student life is centred on the colleges and numerous pan-university artistic activities, sports clubs and societies.

Cambridge has many notable alumni, including several eminent mathematicians, scientists, economists, writers, philosophers, actors, politicians. Ninety-two Nobel laureates have been affiliated with it as students, faculty, staff or alumni. Throughout its history, the university has featured in literature and artistic works by numerous authors including Geoffrey Chaucer, E. M. Forster and C. P. Snow.