14. University College London (UK)

University College London (UCL) is a public research university in London, England and a constituent college of the federal University of London. Established in 1826 as London University by founders inspired by the radical ideas of Jeremy Bentham, UCL was the first university institution established in London, and the first in England to be entirely secular and to admit students regardless of their religion.[5] It also makes the contested claims to be the third-oldest university in England and the first to have admitted women on equal terms with men.[note 1] UCL became one of the two founding colleges of the University of London in 1836. It has grown through mergers, including with the Institute of Neurology (in 1997), the Royal Free Hospital Medical School (in 1998), the Eastman Dental Institute (in 1999), the School of Slavonic and East European Studies (in 1999), the School of Pharmacy (in 2012) and the Institute of Education (in 2014). UCL is the largest higher education institution in London and the largest postgraduate institution in the UK by enrollment[6] and is regarded as one of the leading multidisciplinary research universities in the world.[7][8][9][10][11]

UCL's main campus is located in the Bloomsbury area of central London, with a number of institutes and teaching hospitals elsewhere in central London and satellite campuses in Adelaide, Australia and Doha, Qatar. UCL is organised into 11 constituent faculties, within which there are over 100 departments, institutes and research centres. UCL is responsible for several museums and collections in a wide range of fields, including the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology and the Grant Museum of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy. In 2014/15, UCL had around 35,600 students and 11,000 staff (including around 6,000 academic staff and 980 professors) and had a total income of £1.18 billion, of which £427.5 million was from research grants and contracts.[1] UCL is a member of numerous academic organisations and is part of UCL Partners, the world's largest academic health science centre,[12] and the 'golden triangle' of elite English universities.[13]

UCL is one of the most selective British universities and ranks highly in national and international league tables.[11][14][15][16][17] UCL's graduates are ranked among the most employable by international employers[18][19] and its alumni include the "Father of the Nation" of each of India, Kenya and Mauritius, the founders of Ghana,[20] modern Japan[21] and Nigeria,[22] the inventor of the telephone, and one of the co-discoverers of the structure of DNA. UCL academics have contributed to major advances in several disciplines; all five of the naturally-occurring noble gases were discovered at UCL by William Ramsay,[23] hormones were co-discovered at UCL by Ernest Starling and William Bayliss,[24] the vacuum tube was invented by UCL graduate John Ambrose Fleming while a faculty of UCL,[25] and several foundational advances in modern statistics were made at UCL's statistical science department founded by Karl Pearson.[26] There are 30 Nobel Prize winners and three Fields Medalists amongst UCL's alumni and current and former staff.