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| Latin:Universitas Lyrpulensis[1] | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Motto | Latin:Haec otia studia fovent | ||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Motto in English | These days of peace foster learning[2] | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Type | Public | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Established | 1881 – University College Liverpool[3] 1884 – affiliated to the federalVictoria University[4] 1903 – royal charter | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Endowment | £193.8 million (2024)[5] | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Budget | £705.3 million (2023/24)[5] | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Chancellor | Wendy Beetlestone | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Vice-Chancellor | Tim Jones | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Visitor | The Lord President of the Councilex officio | ||||||||||||||||||||
Academic staff | 3,325 (2023/24)[6] | ||||||||||||||||||||
Administrative staff | 4,015 (2023/24)[6] | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Students | 30,735 (2023/24)[7] 27,820FTE (2023/24)[7] | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Undergraduates | 22,925 (2023/24)[7] | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Postgraduates | 7,805 (2023/24)[7] | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Location | , England 53°24′22″N2°58′01″W / 53.406°N 2.967°W /53.406; -2.967 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Campus | Urban | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Colours | The University | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Affiliations | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Website | liverpool | ||||||||||||||||||||
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TheUniversity of Liverpool (abbreviatedUOL) is apublicresearch university inLiverpool, England. Founded in 1881 as University College Liverpool and affiliated withVictoria University in 1884, it received aroyal charter fromKing Edward VII in 1903, thereby attaining the authority to award degrees independently. The university holds and operates assets on theNational Heritage List, such as theLiverpool Royal Infirmary (origins in 1749), theNess Botanic Gardens, and theVictoria Gallery & Museum.
Organised into three faculties divided by 35 schools and departments, the university offers more than 230 first degree courses across 103 subjects. It is a founding member of theRussell Group, and the research intensive association of universities inNorthern England, theN8 Group. The phrase"redbrick university" was inspired by theVictoria Building; thus, the university claims to be the originalredbrick university, using the phrase in its brand tag line.[8]
Liverpool is the first UK university to establish departments inoceanography,civic design,architecture, andbiochemistry (at theJohnston Laboratories), and also the first to establish an independent university campus inChina, known asXi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University.[9][10][11][12] The university also founded theUniversity of Liverpool Mathematics School, a specialist A-level maths school, located on the university campus.[13] The university announced a second international campus inIndia.[14] The university has theninth-largest endowment of any university in the UK, and in 2023/24, it had an income of £705.3 million, of which £123.3 million was from research grants and contracts, with an expenditure of £515.8 million.[5]
As of 2024, the university holds four academic fellows of theAcademy of Social Sciences and one of theBritish Academy.[15][16] TenNobel Prize laureates have been affiliated with the University of Liverpool as alumni or academic staff, with notable alumni leading fields in medicine, law, business, engineering, the arts, politics, and technology. Graduates of the university are styled with thepost-nominal letters,Lpool, to indicate the institution.
The university was established in 1881 as College Liverpool, admitting its first students in 1882.[3] In 1884, it became part of the federalVictoria University. In 1894Oliver Lodge, a professor at the university, made the world's first publicradio transmission and two years later took the first surgicalX-ray in the United Kingdom.[17] TheLiverpool University Press was founded in 1899, making it the third-oldestuniversity press in England. Students in this period were awarded external degrees by theUniversity of London.[18]
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Following aroyal charter and anact of Parliament in 1903, it became an independent university (the University of Liverpool) with the right to confer its degrees. The next few years saw major developments at the university, including SirCharles Sherrington's discovery of thesynapse and William Blair-Bell's work onchemotherapy in the treatment of cancer. In the 1930s to 1940s, SirJames Chadwick and SirJoseph Rotblat made major contributions to the development of theatomic bomb.[17] From 1943 to 1966,Allan Downie, Professor of Bacteriology, was involved in the eradication ofsmallpox.
In 1994, the university was a founding member of theRussell Group, a collaboration of twenty leading research-intensive universities, as well as a founding member of theN8 Group in 2004. In the 21st century physicists, engineers and technicians from the University of Liverpool were involved in the construction of theLarge Hadron Collider atCERN, working on two of the four detectors in the LHC.[19]
In 2004, Sylvan Learning, later known as Laureate International Universities, became the worldwide partner for University of Liverpool online.[20] In 2019, it was announced that Kaplan Open Learning, part ofKaplan, Inc., would be the new partner for the University of Liverpool's online programmes.[21] Laureate continued to provide some teaching provision for existing students until 2021.[22]
The university has produced ten Nobel Prize winners, from the fields of science, medicine, economics andpeace. The Nobel laureates include the physicianSir Ronald Ross, physicistCharles Barkla, physicistMartin Lewis Perl, the physiologistSir Charles Sherrington, physicistSir James Chadwick, chemistSir Robert Robinson, chemistHar Gobind Khorana, physiologistRodney Porter, economistRonald Coase and physicistJoseph Rotblat. Sir Ronald Ross was also the first British Nobel laureate in 1902. The university is also associated withRonald Finn and SirCyril Clarke who jointly won theLasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award in 1980 and SirDavid Weatherall who won theLasker-Koshland Special Achievement Award in Medical Science in 2010. TheseLasker Awards are popularly known as America'sNobels.[23]
Over the 2013/2014 academic year, members of staff took part in numerous strikes after staff were offered a pay rise of 1% whichunions equated to a 13% pay cut since 2008. The strikes were supported by both the university's Guild of Students and theNational Union of Students.[24] Some students at the university supported the strike, occupying buildings on campus.[25]
The university is mainly based around a single urban campus approximately five minutes walk from Liverpool City Centre, at the top of Brownlow Hill and Mount Pleasant. Occupying 100 acres, it contains 192 non-residential buildings that house 69 lecture theatres, 114 teaching areas, and research facilities.[citation needed]
The main site is divided into three faculties: Health and Life Sciences; Humanities and Social Sciences; and Science and Engineering. The Veterinary Teaching Hospital (Leahurst) and Ness Botanical Gardens are based on theWirral Peninsula. There was formerly a marine biology research station atPort Erin on theIsle of Man until it closed in 2006.[citation needed]
Fifty-one residential buildings, on or near the campus, provide 3,385 rooms for students, on a catered or self-catered basis. The centrepiece of the campus remains the university's original red brick building, the Victoria Building. Opened in 1892, it was restored in 2008 as the Victoria Gallery and Museum,[26] completed with acafé[27] and activities for school visits.[28]
In 2011 the university made a commitment to invest £660m into the 'Student Experience', £250m of which will reportedly be spent on Student Accommodation. Announced so far have been two large On-Campus halls of residences (the first of which, Vine Court, opened September 2012), new Veterinary Science facilities, and a £10m refurbishment of theLiverpool Guild of Students. New Central Teaching Laboratories for physics, earth sciences, chemistry and archaeology were opened in autumn 2012.[29]
In 2013, the University of Liverpool opened a satellite campus inFinsbury Square inLondon, offering a range of professionally focused masters programmes.[30]
The Central Teaching Hub is a large multi-use building that houses a recently refurbished Lecture Theatre Block (LTB) and teaching facilities (Central Teaching Labs, CTL) for the Departments of Chemistry and Physics and the School of Environmental Sciences, within the university's Central City Centre Campus. It was completed and officially opened in September 2012 with an estimated project cost of £23m.[31] The main building, the 'Central Teaching Laboratory', is built around a large atrium and houses seven separate laboratories that can accommodate 1,600 students at a time. A flexible teaching space, computing centre, multi-departmental teaching spaces, and communal workspaces can also be found inside. The adjoining University Lecture Block building contains four lecture rooms and further social spaces.[32]
In 2008, the University of Liverpool was voted joint seventeenth greenest university in Britain byWWF supported company Green League.[33] This represents an improvement after finishing 55th in the league table the previous year.[34]
The position of the university is determined by point allocation in departments such as Transport, Waste management,sustainable procurement and Emissions among other categories; these are then transpired into various awards.[35] Liverpool was awarded the highest achievement possible in Environmental policy, Environmental staff, Environmental audit, Fair trade status, Ethical investment policy and Waste recycled while also scoring points in Carbon emissions, Water recycle and Energy source.[citation needed]
Liverpool was the first among UK universities to develop their desktop computer power management solution, which has been widely adopted by other institutions.[36] The university has subsequently piloted other advanced software approaches further increasing savings.[37] The university has also been at the forefront of using the Condor HTC computing platform in a power saving environment. This software, which makes use of unused computer time for computationally intensive tasks usually results in computers being left turned on.[38] The university has demonstrated an effective solution for this problem using a mixture of Wake-on-LAN and commercial power management software.[39]
The Interdisciplinary Centre for Sustainability Research (ICSR) was established in 2024 to tackle theUnited Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).[40]
The university is a research-based university with 33,000 students pursuing over 450 programmes spanning 54 subject areas. It has a broad range of teaching and research in both arts and sciences, and theUniversity of Liverpool School of Medicine established in 1835 is today one of the largest medical schools in the UK. It also has close links to the neighbouringRoyal Liverpool University Hospital.[citation needed]
The university has astudents' union to represent students' interests, known as theLiverpool Guild of Students.[41]
The university previously had a strategic partnership withLaureate International Universities, afor-profit college collective, for University of Liverpool online degrees.[42] In 2019, the university announced a new partnership with Kaplan Open Learning for delivery of their online degrees.[21]
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The figurehead of the university is thechancellor. The following have served in that role:
The professional head of the university is thevice-chancellor. The following have served in that role:
Since 2009, teaching departments of the university have been divided into three faculties: Science and Engineering, Health and Life Sciences, and Humanities and Social Sciences. Each faculty is headed by an Executive Pro-Vice-Chancellor, who is responsible for all schools in the faculty.[43]
Faculty of Health & Life Sciences
| Faculty of Humanities & Social Sciences
| Faculty of Science & Engineering
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In the financial year ending 31 July 2024, the University of Liverpool had a total income of £705.3 million (2022/23 – £673.2 million) and total expenditure of £515.8 million (2022/23 – £662.5 million).[5] Key sources of income included £367.1 million from tuition fees and education contracts (2022/23 – £342.5 million), £93.4 million from funding body grants (2022/23 – £94.6 million), £123.3 million from research grants and contracts (2022/23 – £118 million) and £22.7 million from endowment and investment income (2022/23 – £15.6 million).[5]
At year end, Liverpool had endowments of £193.8 million (2023 – £182.7 million) and total net assets of £885.6 million (2023 – £679.8 million). It holds theninth-largest endowment of any university in the UK.[5]
|
| Domicile[47] and Ethnicity[48] | Total | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| British White[a] | 57% | ||
| British Ethnic Minorities[b] | 16% | ||
| International EU | 2% | ||
| International Non-EU | 25% | ||
| UndergraduateWidening Participation Indicators[47][49] | |||
| Female | 56% | ||
| Independent School | 12% | ||
| Low Participation Areas[c] | 11% | ||
In terms of averageUCAS points of entrants, Liverpool ranked 40th in Britain in 2014.[50] The university gives offers of admission to 83.1% of its applicants, the 7th highest amongst theRussell Group.[51]
According to the 2017Times andSunday Times Good University Guide, approximately 12% of Liverpool's undergraduates come from independent schools.[52] In the 2016–17 academic year, the university had a domicile breakdown of 72:3:25 of UK:EU:non-EU students respectively with a female to male ratio of 55:45.[53]
| National rankings | |
|---|---|
| Complete (2026)[54] | 23 |
| Guardian (2026)[55] | 22 |
| Times / Sunday Times (2026)[56] | 18 |
| Global rankings | |
| ARWU (2025)[57] | 101–150 |
| QS (2026)[58] | =147 |
| THE (2026)[59] | 143 |
The university is ranked in the top 1% of universities worldwide according toAcademic ranking of world universities and has previously been ranked within the top 150 university globally by the guide.[60] It is also a founding member of the Russell Group and a founding member of theNorthern Consortium.
In the Complete University Guide 2013, published inThe Independent, the University of Liverpool was ranked 31st out of 124, based on nine measures,[61] whileThe Times Good University Guide 2008 ranked Liverpool 34th out of 113 universities.[62]The Sunday Times university guide recently ranked the University of Liverpool 27th out of 123.[63] In 2010,The Sunday Times has ranked University of Liverpool 29th of 122 institutions nationwide. In 2008 theTHE-QS World University Rankings rated University of Liverpool 99th best in the world, and 137th best worldwide in 2009. In 2011 theQS World University Rankings[64] ranked the university in 123rd place, up 14. In the Times Good University Guide 2013, the University of Liverpool was ranked 29th. Liverpool is ranked 122nd in the world (and 15th in the UK) in the 2016Round University Ranking.[65]
The 2018 U.S. News & World Report ranks Liverpool 129th in the world.[66] In 2019, it ranked 178th among the universities around the world bySCImago Institutions Rankings.[67]
In the 2021Research Excellence Framework (REF), which assesses the quality of research in UK higher education institutions, Liverpool is ranked joint 25th by GPA (along withDurham University and theUniversity of Nottingham) and 19th for research power (the grade point average score of a university, multiplied by the full-time equivalent number of researchers submitted).[68] TheResearch Excellence Framework for 2014 has confirmed the University of Liverpool's reputation for internationally outstanding research. Chemistry, Computer Science, General Engineering, Archaeology, Agriculture, Veterinary & Food Science, Architecture, Clinical Medicine, and English, are ranked in the top 10 in the UK for research excellence rated as 4* (world-leading) or 3* (internationally excellent), and also performed particularly well in terms of the impact of their research.[69] The Computer Science department was ranked 1st in UK for 4* and 3* research, with 97% of the research being rated as world-leading or internationally excellent – the highest proportion of any computer science department in the UK.[70] The Chemistry department was also ranked 1st in the UK with 99% of its research rated as 4* world leading or 3* internationally excellent[71]
In 2006 the university became the first in the UK to establish an independent university in China, making it the world's first Sino-British university.[10][11][12] Resulting from a partnership between the University of Liverpool andXi'an Jiaotong University,Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University is the first Sino-British university between research-led universities, exploring new educational models for China.[72]
The campus is situated inSuzhou Industrial Park in the eastern part ofSuzhou in the province ofJiangsu, 90 km west ofShanghai. It is a science and engineering university with a second focus in English, recognised by the Chinese Ministry of Education as a "not-for-profit" educational institution. The university offers undergraduate degree programmes in the fields of Science, Engineering, and Management. Students are rewarded with a University of Liverpool degree as well as a degree from XJTLU. The teaching language is English.
The university offers a wide selection of accommodation that are on campus as well as student villages off campus. As part of a £660 million investment in campus facilities and student experience, the university has built three new on campus halls, while refurbishing existing accommodation.[73] The accommodation offered currently by the university for 2025/2026 academic year is listed below:[74]
Greenbank Student Village[75]
In 2018, the university faced strong criticism from the student body that the university provided halls were too expensive, by the Cut the Rent campaign.[76]
Privately accommodation owned Apollo Court ranked 3rd and Myrtle Court ranked 4th in the UK for value for money on a university review platform StudentCrowd.[77]
In 2021, "Gladstone Halls" was renamed after leading communist and anti-racist leaderDorothy Kuya.[78]
The University of Liverpool has a sporting tradition and has many premier teams in a variety of sports.[citation needed] The current sporting project comes under the title of Sport Liverpool and offers over 50 different sports ranging from football, rugby, cricket and hockey to others such as windsurfing, lacrosse, and cheerleading.
Many of the sports have both male and female teams and most are involved in competition on a national level.[citation needed]BUCS is the body that organises national university competitions involving 154 institutions in 47 sports. Most sports involve travelling to various locations across the country, mainly on Wednesday afternoons.
Two other prominent competitions are the Christie Championships[79] and the Varsity Cup. TheChristie Cup is an inter-university competition between Liverpool, Leeds and Manchester. The Varsity Cup is a popular "derby" event betweenLiverpool John Moores University and the University of Liverpool.
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There have been ten Nobel Prize Laureates who have been based at the university during a significant point in their career.[82]
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