 | |
| Motto | Knowledge is Power |
|---|---|
| Type | Public |
| Established | 1916; 109 years ago (1916) |
| Endowment | £57.1 million (2024)[1] |
| Budget | £113.8 million (2023/24)[1] |
| Chair | Lord Hastings of Scarisbrick[2] |
| Chancellor | The Princess Royal (as Chancellor of theUniversity of London) |
| President | Zeinab Badawi[3] |
| Vice-Chancellor | Adam Habib |
Academic staff | 615 (2023/24)[4] |
Administrative staff | 585 (2023/24)[4] |
| Students | 6,285 (2023/24)[5] 5,820FTE (2023/24)[5] |
| Undergraduates | 4,085 (2023/24)[5] |
| Postgraduates | 2,195 (2023/24)[5] |
| Location | , United Kingdom |
| Campus | Urban |
| Affiliations | |
| Mascot | Arabian camel andAsian elephant |
| Website | soas |
 | |
 | |
TheSchool of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS University of London;/ˈsoʊæs/)[6][7] is apublicresearch university inLondon, England, and amember institution of the federalUniversity of London. Founded in 1916, SOAS is located in theBloomsbury area of central London.
SOAS is one of the world's leading institutions for the study of Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.[8] Its library is one of the five national research libraries in England.[9] SOAS also houses the SOAS Gallery, which hosts a programme of changing contemporary and historical exhibitions from Asia, Africa, and the Middle East with the aim of presenting and promoting cultures from these regions. The annual income of the institution for 2023–24 was £113.8 million of which £9.6 million was from research grants and contracts, with an expenditure of £76.6 million.[1]
SOAS is divided into two colleges and one self-standing school: the College of Humanities; the College of Social Sciences; and theSOAS School of Law. The university offers around 350bachelor's degree combinations, more than 100 one-year master's degrees, and PhD programmes in nearly every department. The university has educated severalheads of state,government ministers,diplomats,central bankers,Supreme Courtjudges, aNobel Peace Prize Laureate, and many other notable leaders around the world. SOAS is a member of theAssociation of Commonwealth Universities.
The School of Oriental Studies was founded in 1916 at 2Finsbury Circus, London, the then premises of theLondon Institution. The school received itsroyal charter on 5 June 1916 and admitted its first students on 18 January 1917. The school was formally inaugurated a month later on 23 February 1917 byGeorge V. Among those in attendance wereEarl Curzon of Kedleston, formerlyViceroy of India, and other cabinet officials.[10]
The School of Oriental Studies was founded by the British state as an instrument to strengthen Britain's political, commercial, and military presence in Asia and Africa.[12] It would do so by providing instruction to colonial administrators (Colonial Service andImperial Civil Service),[12] commercial managers, and military officers, as well as to missionaries, doctors, and teachers, in the language of the part of Asia or Africa to which each was being posted, together with an authoritative introduction to the customs, religions, laws, and history of the people whom they were to govern or among whom they would be working.[12]
The school's founding mission was to advance British scholarship, science, and commerce in Africa and Asia, and to provide London University with a rival to the Oriental schools ofBerlin,Petrograd, andParis.[13] The school immediately became integral to training British administrators, colonial officials, and spies for overseas postings across theBritish Empire. Africa was added to the school's name in 1938.
For a period in the mid-1930s, prior to moving to its current location at Thornhaugh Street,Bloomsbury, the school was located at Vandon House, Vandon Street, London SW1, with the library located atClarence House. Its move to new premises in Bloomsbury was held up by delays in construction and the half-completed building took a hit during theBlitz in September 1940. With the onset of theSecond World War, many University of London colleges were evacuated from London in 1939 and billeted on universities in the rest of the country.[14] The School was, on the Government's advice, transferred toChrist's College, Cambridge.[15]
In 1940, when it became apparent that a return to London was possible, the school returned to the city and was housed for some months in eleven rooms at Broadway Court, 8Broadway, London SW1. In 1942, theWar Office joined with the school to create a scheme for State Scholarships to be offered to select grammar and public-school boys with linguistic ability to train as military translators and interpreters in Chinese, Japanese,Persian, and Turkish. Lodged atDulwich College in south London, the students became affectionately known asthe Dulwich boys.[16] One of these students wasCharles Dunn, who became a prominent Japanologist on the faculty of the SOAS and a recipient of theOrder of the Rising Sun.[17] Others includedSir Peter Parker andRonald Dore. Subsequently, the School ran a series of courses in Japanese, both for translators and for interpreters.[18]
In recognition of SOAS's role during the war, the 1946 Scarborough Commission (officially the "Commission of Enquiry into the Facilities for Oriental, Slavonic, East European and African Studies")[19] report recommended a major expansion in provision for the study of Asia and the school benefited greatly from the subsequent largesse.[20] TheSOAS School of Law was established in 1947 withSeymour Gonne Vesey-FitzGerald as its first head. Growth however was curtailed by following years of economic austerity, and upon SirCyril Philips assuming the directorship in 1956, the school was in a vulnerable state. Over his 20-year stewardship, Phillips transformed the school, raising funds and broadening the school's remit.[20]
A college of the University of London, the School's fields includeLaw,Social Sciences,Humanities, andLanguages with special reference to Asia and Africa. The SOAS Library, located in the Philips Building, is the UK's national resource for materials relating to Asia and Africa and is the largest of its kind in the world.[21] The school has grown considerably over the past 30 years, from fewer than 1,000 students in the 1970s to more than 6,000 students today, nearly half of them postgraduates. SOAS is partnered with theInstitut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales (INALCO) inParis which is often considered the French equivalent of SOAS.[22]
In 2011, thePrivy Council approved changes to the school's charter allowing it to award degrees in its own name, following the trend set by fellow colleges theLondon School of Economics,University College London andKing's College London. All new students registered from September 2013 will qualify for a SOAS, University of London, award.[23]
In 2012, a new visual identity for SOAS was launched to be used in print, digital media and around the campus. The SOAS tree symbol, first implemented in 1989, was redrawn and recoloured in gold, with the new symbol incorporating the leaves of ten trees, including theEnglish Oak representing England; theBodhi,Coral Bark Maple,Teak representing Asia; theMountain Acacia,African Pear,Lasiodiscus representing Africa; and theDate Palm,Pomegranate andGhaf representing the Middle East.[24]
SOAS has a student body of which many are committedanti-Zionists. The SOAS Students' Union was the firststudents' union to carry out a referendum, in 2005, to support the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions movement for goods stocked in the Students' Union,[25] and in 2015, the SOAS Students' Union held a referendum in which its members voted to adopt theBoycott, Divestment and Sanctions directions more generally in the university. In 2022, students occupied the management section of the university for nine days, citing the university's investments in Israel amongst other reasons, which led to the university spending £200,000 in their eviction.[26] AfterIsrael's war in Gaza. university management suspended seven studentsprotesting the university's investments in Israel and partnership withHaifa university, a university in Israel with three military colleges and a military base on campus.[26] These students stated that the suspensions were arbitrary and a "targeted act of political repression", whereas the university replied that the students were a "threat to the SOAS community".[27] In the same period, a lecturer reported that security had removed a poster with thePalestinian flag from her door. SOAS responded that the display of the Palestinian flag violated "safeguarding".[28]
SOAS has an active Jewish Society which is explicitly anti-Zionist.[29] In 2024, and in the context ofuniversity protest camps established around the world relating to Israel's war in Gaza, SOAS director Adam Habib hosted a high-level meeting about antisemitism on campus, extending an invite to various Jewish academics on campus, but excluding any representation from the Jewish Society. On April 19, 2024, SOAS posted a job advert for a new Jewish Chaplain whose key responsibilities include supporting "the implementation of a Jewish Society within the Student [sic] Union," therefore implicating that the existing Jewish Society would be replaced by a society organised from the top down.[30]
In December 2020The Guardian reported that SOAS refunded a student £15,000 in fees after he chose to abandon his studies as a result of the "toxic antisemitic environment" he felt had been allowed to develop on campus.[31] Examples of matters he considered anti-Semitic are, according to the Guardian report previously cited, that being pro-Israel was described as "Zionist", the student body's public support of the BDS movement, and that his proposal to write a thesis on perceived anti-Israel bias at the UN led to a response that, in his words, "he was covering up Israeli war crimes and was a white supremacist Nazi". He additionally stated that he had seen "anti-Semitic graffiti" on campus, but did not specify what this was, leaving it unclear as to whether or not he considered statements for example in support of the BDS movement as anti-Semitic. Leading Jewish figures at the university have disagreed with his assessment, with stating that they felt "much more comfortable being outwardly Jewish, visibly Jewish, or having people know that I'm Jewish around SOAS students than I am in pretty much any other context in this country."[30]
The campus is located in theBloomsbury area of central London, close toRussell Square. It includes College Buildings (the Philips Building and the Old Building), Brunei Gallery building, 53 Gordon Square (which houses the Doctoral School) and, since 2016, the Paul Webley Wing (the North Block of Senate House). The SOAS library designed bySir Denys Lasdun in 1973 is located in the Philips Building. The nearestUnderground station isRussell Square.
The school houses the Brunei Gallery, built from an endowment from theSultan of Brunei Darussalam, the leader of a country whose human rights abuses are ongoing,[32] and inaugurated by thePrincess Royal, as Chancellor of the University of London, on 22 November 1995. Its facilities include exhibition space on three floors, a book shop, a lecture theatre, and conference and teaching facilities. The Brunei Gallery hosts a programme of changing contemporary and historical exhibitions from Asia, Africa and the Middle East with the aim to present and promote cultures from these regions.[33]
The Japanese-style roof garden on top of the Brunei Gallery was built during the Japan 2001 celebrations and was opened by the sponsor,Haruhisa Handa, an Honorary Fellow of the School, on 13 November 2001.[34]
The school hosted thePercival David Foundation of Chinese Art, one of the foremost collections of Chinese ceramics in Europe. The collection has been loaned to theBritish Museum, where it is now on permanent display in Room 95.
The SOAS Centenary Masterplan conceived the development of two new buildings and a substantial remodelling of existing space to realign and develop the entrance and two areas within the Old Building. The cost estimates for the Centenary Masterplan settle at around £73m for the total project. The full implementation of the School's Centenary Masterplan would deliver approximately 30% additional space, approximately 1,000 sq metres.[35]
| Appointed | President |
|---|---|
| 2001 | Helena Kennedy[36] |
| 23 April 2012 | Graça Machel[37] |
| 5 October 2021 | Zeinab Badawi[3] |
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Since its foundation, the school has had ten directors. The inaugural director was the linguistEdward Denison Ross. Under the stewardship ofCyril Philips, the school saw growth and modernisation.[20] UnderColin Bundy in the 2000s, the school became one of the top ranked universities both domestically and internationally.[38] In January 2021Adam Habib became director of SOAS in place ofValerie Amos, who had taken up the position of Master atUniversity College, Oxford.[39][40] In 2024, the position of director was renamed vice-chancellor.[41]
| Appointed | Director/Vice-Chancellor |
|---|---|
| 1916 | Edward Denison Ross |
| 1937 | Ralph Lilley Turner |
| 1956 | Cyril Philips |
| 1976 | Jeremy Cowan |
| 1989 | Michael McWilliam |
| 1996 | Tim Lankester |
| 2001 | Colin Bundy[42] |
| 2006 | Paul Webley[43] |
| 2015 | Valerie Amos |
| 2021 | Adam Habib |
The SOAS Board of Trustees sets policy, mission, and purpose for the university. The Trustees are also responsible for overseeing the management of resources and upholding SOAS's role. The board consists of a chair, two vice-chairs, an honorary treasurer, 10 lay members, the Vice-Chancellor, Provost, and Deputy Vice-Chancellor, DeputyVice-Chancellor Research and Knowledge Exchange, Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Finance and Operations and Clerk to the Board, a Professional Services Member, college deans, and student representatives.[44]
As of 1 August 2025, SOAS is divided into two colleges and one self-standing School.[45] These are further divided into academic departments. SOAS has many Centres and Institutes, each of which is affiliated to a particular faculty.
The College of Humanities houses the School of Art, the School of History, Religions and Philosophies, the School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics, and the School of Anthropology, Media and Gender. The first ever university linguistics department in the United Kingdom was created in 1932 at SOAS, serving as a centre for research and study in Oriental and African languages.[46]J. R. Firth, known internationally for his work in phonology and semantics, was a Senior Lecturer, Reader and Professor of General Linguistics at the school between 1938 and 1956.
The College of Humanities offers courses at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels, with an emphasis on Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. A gift from theAlphawood Foundation in 2013 created the Hiram W. Woodward Chair in Southeast Asian art, theDavid Snellgrove Senior Lectureship in Tibetan and Buddhist art, and a Senior Lectureship in Curating and Museology of Asian Art, as well as a number of scholarships for students, making the Department of Art & Archaeology a key institution at a global level in the study ofSoutheast Asia.[47] The university is also a member of theScreen Studies Group, London.
The College of Social Sciences houses the departments of Development, Politics and International Studies, Economics, and Finance and Management.
One of the largest individual departments, theSOAS School of Law is one of Britain's leading law schools and the sole law school in the world focusing on the study of Asian, African and Middle Eastern legal systems.[48] The School of Law has more than 400 students. It offers programmes at theLL.B.,LL.M. andMPhil/PhD levels.International students have been a majority at all levels for many years.
The SOAS School of Law has an unrivaled concentration of expertise in the laws of Asian and African countries,human rights, transnationalcommercial law,environmental law, andcomparative law. The SOAS School of Law was ranked 15th out of all 98 British law schools byThe Guardian League Table in 2016.[49]
Although many modules at SOAS embody a substantial element of Englishcommon law, all modules are taught (as much as possible) in a comparative or international manner with an emphasis on the way in which law functions in society. Thus, law studies at SOAS are broad and comparative in their orientation. All students study a significant amount of non-English law, starting in the first year of the LL.B. course, where "Legal Systems of Asia and Africa" is compulsory. Specialised modules in the laws and legal systems of particular countries and regions are also encouraged, and faculty experts conduct modules in these subjects every year.
SOAS has a number of region-specific institutions, drawing on expertise across the various colleges:[50]
It also has a number of regional centres and other, non-regional institutes:
SOAS is a centre for the study of subjects concerned with Asia, Africa and the Middle East.[51] It trainsgovernment officials onsecondment from around the world in Asian, African and Middle Eastern languages and area studies, particularly inArabic &Islamic Studies – which combined withHebrew formed the major bulk of classicalOriental Studies in Europe – andMandarin Chinese. It also acts as a consultant to government departments and to companies such asAccenture andDeloitte – when they seek to gain specialist knowledge of the matters concerning Asia, Africa and the Middle East.
The school has a student-staff ratio of 15:1, which in the Complete University Guide 2025 ranked 44th in the UK.[51]
The SOAS library is a library for Asian, African and Middle Eastern studies.[52] It houses more than 1.2 million volumes and electronic resources for the study of Africa, Asia and the Middle East,[52] and attracts scholars from all over the world. The library was designated byHEFCE in 2011 as one of the UK's five National Research Libraries.[53]
The library is housed in the Philips Building on theRussell Square campus and was built in 1973.[54] It was designed by architectSir Denys Lasdun, who also designed some of Britain'sbrutalist buildings such as theNational Theatre and theInstitute of Education.
In 2010/11, the library underwent a £12 million modernisation programme, known as "the Library Transformation Project".[55] The work refurbished the ground floor of the library and created new reception and entrance areas, new music practice rooms, group study rooms and a gallery exhibition space.[56]
Since SOAS is a constituent college of the University of London, its students also have access toSenate House Library, shared by other colleges such asLondon School of Economics andUniversity College London, which is located close to the Russell Square campus.
The library was used as a filming location for some scenes in the 2016 filmCriminal.[57]
| National rankings | |
|---|---|
| Complete (2026)[58] | 62= |
| Guardian (2026)[59] | 116 |
| Times / Sunday Times (2026)[60] | 75 |
| Global rankings | |
| QS (2026)[61] | 511= |
| THE (2026)[62] | 401–500 |
The 2022QS World University Rankings placed SOAS 2nd in the world for Development Studies,[63] 10th for Anthropology[64] and 15th for Politics.[65] For Arts & Humanities overall, it was placed 67th in the world by the same rankings.[66] As an institution, it placed 508th overall in the QS World University Rankings 2025, having fallen from a high of 252nd in 2017.[67] SOAS ranked 33rd globally for International Students and 49th for International Faculty in the 2023 QS World University Rankings.[68]
SOAS's Department of Financial and Management Studies (DeFiMS) is ranked within the top 60 in the UK for Business Studies in the 2023Complete University Guide's League Table.[69] The research strength of the department has been previously recognised by the 2021Research Excellence Framework (REF) where 81 per cent was rated as world-leading and internationally excellent, placing it 41st in the country by GPA.[70]
The results of the 2021 REF took the form of profiles spread across four grade levels. Hence, there are different ways to present them and to rank the departments. According to published tables byTimes Higher Education, SOAS is ranked 4th by GPA in the UK for Anthropology (an improvement from 16th in the previous exercise in 2014) and 25th in the UK for Development Studies.[71]
A range of scholarships and awards support SOAS degree programmes, with an application process based either on academic merit or with a focus on supporting students from specific countries or connected with particular areas of study, as well as some bursaries addressing students' financial needs.[72]
SOAS publishesacademic journals such asThe China Quarterly,[73]Bulletin of the School of Oriental & African Studies,Journal of African Law,[74]South East Asia Research[75] andSOAS Bulletin of Burma Research.
|
| Domicile[79] and Ethnicity[80] | Total | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| British White[a] | 20% | ||
| British Ethnic Minorities[b] | 52% | ||
| International EU | 5% | ||
| International Non-EU | 24% | ||
| UndergraduateWidening Participation Indicators[79][81] | |||
| Female | 62% | ||
| Independent School | 9% | ||
| Low Participation Areas[c] | 4% | ||
In 2023/24, there were 4,085 undergraduate students.[5] In 2012, 41% of students were over 21 and 60% were female.[82] According to the QS World University Rankings, SOAS hosts international students from 140 countries.[83]
SOAS is renowned for its political scene and radical socialist politics and was voted the most politically active university in theUK in the Which? University 2012. Recent campaigns include students for social change, women's liberty and justice for cleaners.[84] The SOAS Student Union was established in 1927, and has a long history of activism: campaigning against the introduction of both student loans and later student fees; raising funds for the Algerian victims of theAlgerian War of Independence against France in 1959; and successfully campaigning for the school to divest from fossil fuels. The SU bar became an established live music venue by the 1970s and was whereNirvana played their first UK gig in 1989.[85] The SOAS Marxist Society holds frequent events and encourages student voter registration.
Located in the heart of Bloomsbury, many University of London schools and institutes are close by, includingBirkbeck, theInstitute of Education,London Business School, theLondon School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, theRoyal Veterinary College, theSchool of Advanced Study,Senate House Library andUniversity College London.
SOAS has multiple smaller sports teams competing in a variety of local and national leagues, as well as occasional international tournaments. SOAS clubs compete in inter-university fixtures in theBritish Universities and Colleges Sport (BUCS) competition in a range of sports, including basketball, football, hockey, netball, rugby union and tennis.[86] SOAS also participates in an annual North London Varsity tournament againstLondon Metropolitan University.[87]
Some programs help students to work part-time on campus alongside their full-time study.
The School of Finance and Management has also partnered with learning platform Practera to offer a Virtual Industry Project, a two-week remote work-based learning experience to give students a taste of consulting roles.
SOAS operates two halls of residence in central London, both owned by Sanctuary Student Housing.[88]The primary accommodation for undergraduates is Dinwiddy House, which is located onPentonville Road. This contains 510 single en-suite rooms arranged in small cluster flats of around six rooms each. The halls are located within minutes ofKing's Cross St Pancras tube station and the Vernon Square campus.[89]
A few minutes walk from Dinwiddy House and also on the Pentonville Road is Paul Robeson House, the second hall of residence. This was opened in 1998, and is named after the African-American musicianPaul Robeson who studied at SOAS in the 1930s.[90] This accommodation is occupied by postgraduate students, and those attending the international SOAS Summer schools.[91]
SOAS students are eligible to apply for places in the University of London intercollegiate halls of residence.[92] The majority of these are based in Bloomsbury such as Canterbury Hall, Commonwealth Hall, College Hall,Connaught Hall,Hughes Parry Hall,International Hall andInternational Students House, while further afield areNutford House inMarble Arch and Lillian Penson Hall inPaddington. A number of SOAS postgraduate students also apply for student accommodation at Goodenough College. Wood Green Hall is another accommodation in North London that reserves places for SOAS students annually.
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![Martin Griffiths, former Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs[93]](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=https%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aMartin_Griffiths.jpg)
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Around the world, several national leaders and political figures are alumni:Aung San Suu Kyi, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and First and incumbent State Counsellor of Myanmar,Zairil Khir Johari, Member of the Malaysian Parliament[94]
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