For over 100 years the University of Birmingham has helped develop knowledge and understanding through a spirit of challenge and enquiry. Its foundations are rooted in the needs of the region for educated minds and people able to lead and develop business; inevitably, discoveries made by Birmingham's academics have helped to fuel international development and our graduates lead global companies - alumni include the current prime minister of the Bahamas and Nobel Prize winner Sir Paul Nurse, president of Rockefeller University in New York.
In recent times, Birmingham researchers developed pace makers and synthesised vitamin C. Today they are pioneering a new treatment for prostate cancer, working as partners in the European Space Programme as well as at the vanguard of Shakespeare scholarship and recently developed the world’s smallest engine.
Today, the University hosts almost eight hundred researchers of international repute, defined by the stringent standards of the UK Government’s Research Assessment Exercise. Areas of outstanding reputation include Anatomy, Chemical Engineering, Clinical Laboratory Science, Metallurgy and Materials, Russian and East European Studies, Sport and Exercise Sciences and West African Studies: a range of subjects which exemplifies the breadth of academic engagement and achievement across the Arts and Sciences.
The University provides nearly 500 undergraduate programmes and more than 320 postgraduate taught programmes. The University is located five minutes from the heart of the city of Birmingham, a city with a heritage of multiculturalism and non-conformism. For centuries, Birmingham welcomed different faiths and cultures to help drive and benefit from the advancement of the city’s economy. The beautiful University was the first campus university in Britain, creating a learning community housed in stately redbrick buildings against a green and leafy setting; a multicultural environment feeds academic development, encouraging a more open and tolerant mindset amongst our students and our 35,000 strong community as a whole.
Birmingham's membership of Universitas 21 eloquently expresses its global vision, bringing together neighbours who span the world. This is reinforced by the commitment to developing an international strategy that ensures the University of Birmingham plays a high profile in terms of global higher education and research. Each year, over 4,000 students from 150 countries study at the University of Birmingham, enhancing its reputation as a truly international university, adding to our diverse range of cultures, views and opinions. The University provides opportunities for home students and staff to study and research abroad, especially with U21 partners, so they can experience other cultures and languages. It encourages them to take on challenges, meet new people and learn about life outside the UK.