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Acampus university is a British term for auniversity situated on one site, with student accommodation, teaching and research facilities, and leisure activities all together. It is derived from theLatin termcampus, meaning "a flat expanse of land, plain, field".^[1]

The founding of these new institutions initiated a wave of far reaching expansion inhigher education within the UK and helped open access to Higher Education to students who found access to the more traditional universities difficult or closed. The traditional universities tended to attract students from the exclusive private education sector in the UK and from privileged backgrounds whereas campus universities attracted students from all classes, backgrounds and schools (especially the state fundedgrammar and then latercomprehensive schools).

These institutions also promoted "new" courses of study and so helped initiate not just a great expansion in numbers of students but also in the range of subjects studied.

As such, many students in the campus universities, particularly in the post-war period of 1950 to 1970, were the first member of their family ever to go to university, and were studying new and "exciting" topics, which lent a radical edge to the experience of higher education.

Campus universities are contrasted tocollegiate universities, based on a number of colleges (such as the universities ofOxford,Durham,London orCambridge) or a university consisting of a number of sites, or even individual buildings, spread throughout a town (such as theUniversity of Edinburgh or theUniversity of Sheffield). Confusingly, multi-site universities often call each separate site "a campus" and many original campus universities now have expanded to more than one site (or campus), for example theUniversity of Nottingham.

The classic campus university is often found on the edge of a city. Examples include:

• Aston University in Birmingham is a classic campus university, but located in the city centre of the city.
• University of Bath which is just outside the city ofBath
• University of Birmingham which is located inEdgbaston, 3 miles south-west ofBirmingham
• Brunel University London which is inUxbridge, on the edge ofWest London
• University of East Anglia which is 3 miles from the city ofNorwich
• University of Essex nearColchester
• University of Exeter which has four campuses located in Devon and Cornwall
• Keele University nearNewcastle-under-Lyme
• University of Kent which is just on the edge of the city ofCanterbury
• Lancaster University near the city ofLancaster
• University of Nottingham which is located on the outer-suburbs of Nottingham
• University of Reading which has three campuses around Reading
• Robert Gordon University on the outskirts ofAberdeen
• University of Roehampton which is located in south-west London
• Queen Mary University of London which is located in Mile End, London
• Royal Holloway, University of London on the outskirts ofLondon
• University of Stirling on the outskirts ofStirling
• University of Sussex which is 4 miles from the city of Brighton
• Swansea University which has two campuses, both 2 to 3 miles fromSwansea
• University of Warwick nearCoventry
• University of York on the outskirts ofYork

• Robbins Report
• British universities
• Post-1992 universities
• Russell Group
• 1994 Group

• Higher education in the United Kingdom
• Types of university or college

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