About the University The University of Birmingham was founded on the vision of Joseph Chamberlain in 1900 to provide a university for the people of Birmingham, ‘a great school of universal instruction… taking all knowledge in its province’. This philosophy has defined and shaped us as an institution for our city ever since, founded on equality of opportunity for all. We are proud to continue to find new expressions for these civic roots. The University is now a global institution, with our doors open, welcoming the best to Birmingham and taking the best of Birmingham to the world. Our heritage as the original ‘redbrick’ is combined with an ambitious agenda to continue the transformation of the University. In recent years, we have significantly increased our recruitment of leading academics, and have undertaken a £1 billion renewal of the campus estate. Ranked within the top 100 universities globally, Birmingham is a member of the Russell Group and a founding member of the Universitas 21 global network of research universities. Numerous staff have received the most prestigious recognition within their fields, including Nobel Prizes. The quality of our research has grown significantly, as demonstrated in the 2021 Research Excellence Framework results, where we ranked 10th, having enjoyed the biggest rise of any institution in the Russell Group. This success is continuing, with academics at Birmingham attracting in excess of £250m in research awards in the last academic year. It is consistently amongst the most targeted universities by graduate employers. We have our own non-selective secondary school and sixth form serving the diverse communities of Birmingham, and have a major campus in Dubai. We take our role seriously as an anchor institution for the UK’s diverse, youthful, and dynamic second city, and are one of the largest employers in the region. We played a central role in the success of the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games, and value our partnerships with local organisations including through our Civic University Agreement signed with Birmingham City Council and the West Midlands Combined Authority. Through The Exchange we have a city centre base from which to work with partners. We are currently working with Bruntwood SciTech and NHS partners to develop the Birmingham Health Innovation Campus which will open in 2024.
Our University Community At Birmingham, we teach and research across the full breadth of academic disciplines, creating a vibrant community with multidisciplinary opportunities for research and education. We are a truly international community, comprising more than 8,000 staff, 38,000 students, and over 350,000 alumni. Our student community is not only one of the largest of any UK university, but also highly diverse, with 86% of our home undergraduate students from state schools, 43% from black, Asian or other minority ethnic backgrounds, and 36% in the first generation of their family to attend university. We have a diverse staff community: over one-third of our academic staff are from overseas, around 22% of our staff are from black, Asian or other minority ethnic backgrounds, and 5% have a declared disability. Our most recent staff survey indicates levels of engagement and pride which most employers would be pleased to achieve, and we are committed to building on this through the inclusion of ‘people and culture’ as a core pillar of the Birmingham 2030 Strategic Framework. We support academics at all stages of their career through our recently reformed Birmingham Academic Career Framework, with the aim of supporting colleagues to develop and maintain an academic culture of intellectual stimulation and high achievement, whilst fostering a deep affinity with the institution.
We value our diversity and aim to provide a welcoming and inclusive environment for all members of the University community. We believe our diversity is a source of strength that underpins the exchange of ideas, innovation and debate at the heart of our academic mission. We hold a Bronze Race Equality Charter Award and a
Bronze Athena SWAN Charter Award at institutional level, with many school- level awards at both silver and bronze.
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