University of Cambridge

United Kingdom

The University of Cambridge, in Cambridge, England, is a public research university in the United Kingdom organised around its colleges. It was founded in 1209 by scholars who had left Oxford after a dispute with local townspeople, and it is the second-oldest university in the English-speaking world. King Henry III granted it a royal charter in 1231, and today it has 31 semi-autonomous colleges and more than 150 departments, faculties and other institutions in six schools.

CWUR's 2026 edition and ShanghaiRanking's ARWU 2026 both rank Cambridge No. 4 in the world and first in the United Kingdom. Times Higher Education (World University Rankings 2027) and U.S. News & World Report (Best Global Universities 2026-2027) place it No. 5, and QS World University Rankings 2027 No. 6. In CWUR's breakdown it is 2nd in the world for education.

Undergraduate teaching centres on weekly small-group supervisions in the colleges. Cambridge University Press and Assessment contains the oldest university press in the world, and the university's 116 libraries hold about 16 million books. Alumni named by Wikipedia include Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Rosalind Franklin, Alan Turing and Stephen Hawking, and people linked to it as alumni, academics or affiliates have received 126 Nobel Prizes.

Sources of this text: Wikipedia · Center for World University Rankings (CWUR) · ShanghaiRanking Consultancy · Times Higher Education · U.S. News & World Report · Quacquarelli Symonds (QS)

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