The idea for a university in Coventry was first mooted shortly after the end of the Second World War. It was a bold and imaginative partnership of the City and the County that brought the University into being on a 170-hectare site jointly granted by the two authorities. Since then, the University incorporated the former Coventry College of Education in 1979 and HRI Wellesbourne and Kirton in 2004 and has extended its land holdings by the purchase of adjoining farmland. The establishment of the University of Warwick was given approval by the government in 1961 and the University received its Royal Charter of Incorporation in 1965. It is situated on a large 710-acre campus that straddles the boundary between the City of Coventry and the County of Warwickshire. The university includes land in Wellesbourne in Warwickshire as well as a building at the University Hospital Coventry and Warwickshire (UHCW) in Walsgrave, Coventry.

The University initially admitted a small intake of graduate students in 1964 and took its first 450 undergraduates in October 1965. In November 2022, the student population was over 28,500. Today 33% of the student body comes from overseas from approximately 150 countries. The University has 33 academic departments and over 60 research centres and institutes in three Faculties: Arts; Science, Engineering and Medicine; and Social Sciences.

Warwick has always encouraged and facilitated admission from anyone who has the potential to succeed at the University. In 1991, the University initiated an innovative shared 2+2 degree programme with a group of local FE Colleges, which was specifically aimed at people with few if any formal qualifications, who were often in situations of considerable social and economic disadvantage. Warwick has also been involved with Foundation Degrees since they were first piloted by the government in 2001. The University delivers Widening Participation programmes for students of all ages and abilities, intended to increase participants’ awareness and understanding of higher education, raise aspirations and break down stereotypes and barriers.

University Chancellors

The University's first Chancellor was Lord Radcliffe, who continued in office until his death in April 1977. He was succeeded by Lord Scarman, who retired from office in 1989. Warwick's third Chancellor was Sir Shridath Ramphal, who presided over the University from 1989 - 2002, and the University's fourth Chancellor, Sir Nicholas Scheele, was appointed in March 2002. Richard Lambert, Director General of the CBI, was formally installed as the University's fifth Chancellor in December 2008. In November 2016 the University's sixth, and first ever female Chancellor was announced, Baroness Catherine Ashton. In January 2024 Advocate Bience Gawanas will become the seventh chancellor.

The University's founding Vice-Chancellor was Jack Butterworth (later Lord Butterworth), who guided the University through its formative years and provided much of the vision for the University's future growth and success. His achievement was establishing Warwick firmly on the national stage, setting a basic strategy and culture for the University and overseeing the building of a university on what was a greenfield site. He was succeeded in September 1985 by Dr Clark Brundin. As Vice-Chancellor from 1985 until 1992, Dr. Brundin presided over a period of expansion and success: student numbers doubled, postgraduates increased by over 250% and Warwick established itself firmly in the top tier of UK research universities. Dr Brundin was succeeded in 1993 by Professor Sir Brian Follett, formerly Biological Secretary and Vice-President of the Royal Society, and Agricultural and Food Research Council Research Professor in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Bristol.

In 1994, Sir Brian launched the Warwick Research Fellowships, a £10m scheme, entirely financed by the University, which brought to Warwick a cohort of some of the brightest young researchers in the UK and abroad. His successful academic leadership resulted in the excellent results for the University in the Research Assessment Exercises of 1996 and 2001, the successes in external teaching assessments and the considerable popularity of the University as a place to work and study. Sir Brian also presided over an ambitious building programme that resulted in over £100m of new capital projects during his leadership. Sir Brian retired in 2001 and was succeeded by Professor David VandeLinde, formerly Dean of the Whiting School of Engineering at Johns Hopkins University and latterly Vice-Chancellor at the University of Bath. His period as Vice-Chancellor was marked by an emphasis on building links and partnerships with the local community, an enhanced international strategy and welcoming HRI Wellesbourne and Kirton to the University as Warwick HRI.

Professor VandeLinde was succeeded by Professor Nigel Thrift in 2006, formerly Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research and Head of the Division of Life and Environmental Sciences at the University of Oxford. He was awarded a knighthood in 2015 for his services to higher education. In early 2016 Professor Stuart Croft, formerly the Provost at the University, succeeded Professor Sir Nigel Thrift. Professor Croft has been part of Warwick's community since 2007, when he first joined the Politics and International Studies department as Professor of International Security. Prior to his appointment as Provost, he was Warwick's Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research (Arts and Social Sciences).

Rankings and League Tables

From its beginnings, the University has sought to promote excellence in both teaching and research. It has secured its place as one of the UK's leading research universities. The REF 2008 results placed Warwick 7th overall amongst comprehensive institutions in the UK and confirmed that 94% of Warwick's research is internationally recognised. In the media league tables, Warwick consistently maintains its position in the UK top ten.

According to the latest UK Government Research Excellence Framework (REF 2021), 92% of the University’s research is world-leading or internationally excellent. In the media league tables, Warwick consistently maintains its position in the UK top ten, and we continue to illustrate our reputation for excellence in the UK and globally. We've been ranked 22nd in Europe by the QS World Rankings, placing us as one of the top European institutions. In The Times Higher Most International University statistics, we’re currently ranked at 28th in the world, and in the most recent Government Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) the university has been awarded Gold in all three areas: student experience, student outcomes, and overall.

Research Excellence

Warwick has always taken the view that good research informs and strengthens the quality of education that it is able to offer its students. The original conception for the University's academic structure was not to impose overall academic prescription but to make early appointments to the first professorships, selecting candidates with fresh and constructive ideas on how studies in their areas should be organised and developed. The planning of courses developed organically with a marked emphasis on inter-disciplinary co-operation. Business Studies and Engineering - both looking firmly towards the manufacturing heartlands of the West Midlands - were early developments.

In 2011, the University launched Global Research Priorities (GRP). Responding through research to global challenges, the GRP focuses Warwick’s world-class, multidisciplinary research on key areas of international significance, by bringing together scholarly expertise from across faculties and departments. The programme specifically aims to present Warwick’s major areas of research strength around interdisciplinary 'grand challenges', giving emphasis to areas which can make a globally distinctive contribution, increase our research income by better addressing the needs of funding bodies, showcase our research excellence and demonstrate its impact and provide support for and enhance our multidisciplinary and cross-departmental research.

Warwick's Strategy

Warwick's strategy is, and always has been, to be enterprising and outward-looking from its foundation. It seeks to match academic excellence with relevance, a policy which was not always popular in the late 1960s and early 1970s but which has become one of its hallmarks and led former Prime Minister Tony Blair to say that "Warwick is a beacon among British Universities for its dynamism, quality and entrepreneurial zeal" and, more recently, to Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, Dr Vince Cable, hailing as “outstanding” WMG's ability to innovate and bring together a range of disciplines. When government decided to fund universities on a more differential basis in the 1980s which led to sharp downward changes in centrally-provided grants, the University seized the opportunity to explore ways in which it could augment public monies with income generated through its own activities. Many of these ventures are located in departments - exemplifying the point about combining academic excellence with enterprise - but they also include three thriving post-experience residential training centres - Arden House [1982], Radcliffe House [1986] and Scarman House [1991], retail outlets and an award-winning conference business. The money generated in these ways has been a significant factor in the development of the University both academically and physically.

Vision 2015 was a University strategy incorporating ideas generated by the University community itself, a process which was also utilised in the development of a new Strategy through staff consultation, focus groups and student consultation. Both Vision 2015 and the newly-updated Strategy laid out a number of ambitious goals in research, teaching and learning, internationalisation, UK stakeholders and income generation. Through the course of Vision 2015, progress has been made against a number of strategic objectives, including the establishment of a Warwick Prize for Writing, IGGY, an increase in the value of research awards and the number of highly cited academics at the University, the publication of the second Warwick Commission on International Financial Reform and the development of collaborations and partnerships with overseas universities including Boston University, Nanyang Technical University Singapore, Jawaharlal Nehru University and Carnegie-Mellon University. Warwick became the only European institution to partner with universities like NYU, Carnegie-Mellon and Toronto to set up an applied sciences campus in New York - the Center for Urban Science and Progress.

Launched in 2018, our most recent University strategy – Excellence with Purpose – focuses our aim to be even more successful in 2030 than we are today, as one of the world’s exceptional universities, helping to transform our region, country and world for the collective good. Our core purposes of Research and Education will be underpinned by five strategic priorities: Innovation, Inclusion, Regional Leadership, Sustainability and International.

The Digital World

The University was named the UK's most digitally savvy university in a survey by Virgin Media Business in 2012. In 2005, the University launched Warwick Podcasts; and Warwick iCast followed in 2006; an online video service focusing on the promotion of research, science and business activity. The University developed its digital presence through ITunes-U, a free service through which the public accessed programmes about research at the University, lectures, teaching materials and content from our student community. In 2010, the Lifetime Academy was launched providing alumni with access to campus facilities and digital access to careers support, academic knowledge and short courses and in 2012 the University was the first to install a Globelynx TVReady camera, allowing broadcast media to interview our academics live from campus. To complement the teaching and learning experience, the University also introduced the latest evolution of its Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) in 2012: Moodle. This provides additional options for those wishing to explore innovation and efficiencies in teaching practice.

Supporting the Region

Through its activities, the University has sought to play a significant role in its region's economic and social life. It has considerable links with local business and enterprise through WMG and Warwick Business School, works closely with local schools and FE Colleges through the Centre for Education Studies and the Centre for Professional Education, widening participation initiatives and Warwick Volunteers, and has helped attract significant new investment to the Coventry area. In 2016 the University announced its support for Coventry in its bid to become the City of Culture in 2021.

In 2006, Warwick joined with the University of Birmingham to form the Science City Research Alliance (SCRA), part of the Birmingham Science City initiative. The SCRA was funded through the former regional development agency, Advantage West Midlands, and the European Research and Development Fund, with the aim of increasing the science base within the West Midlands, supporting regional technology businesses and improving the prosperity and quality of life of the West Midlands. Beginning with a £57m investment in joint equipment and research infrastructure, the universities worked with companies in the West Midlands, from SMEs to multinationals, to innovate and solve problems through joint research, providing access to equipment or exchanging knowledge.

In 2005 and 2022, the University hosted the International Children's Games, providing accommodation, entertainment and sports facilities to over 1,000 competitors from 70 cities worldwide. The 2022 Games had a focus on sustainability, as well as being the first in the Games' history to include para-sport. The International Gateway for Gifted Youth (IGGY) was launched in 2007 - targeted at the top 5% of 11-19 year olds from around the world - and held highly successful programmes at Warwick, in Singapore and in Botswana.

2019 saw Warwick host the British Science Festival. We also became a principal partner in Coventry City of Culture 2021, along with Coventry University and Coventry City Council. The award is given to a city which shows commitment to culture and development. It encourages new visitors, investment and jobs, and pulls together initiatives across the city. In celebration of Coventry’s City of Culture year, the University hosted the Resonate Festival, bringing a 12-month programme of inspiring and interactive events for people of all ages across Coventry and Warwickshire to spark ideas, curiosity and creativity. Resonate culminated in a three-day live festival on campus in April 2022.

Supported by £275,000 of investment by the University, the Esports Centre was launched on central campus in 2021. With Warwickshire’s Silicon Spa internationally recognised as a games cluster generating some of the best-known titles and brands, the Centre seeks to work closely with regional and national partners including CWLEP, Create Central, and the West Midlands Combined Authority to lead on Esports. The centre’s cutting-edge facilities will provide significant benefits both to Warwick and the surrounding region, including skills development, training and research opportunities.

We were proud to be chosen to provide world-class training facilities for athletes taking part in the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games, as well as hosting an athletes’ village for close to 2,000 competitors. We also supported the Playing Out in Canley project, funded by Spirit of 2012 and the Commonwealth Games 2022. Our Community Engagement team and Warwick Arts Centre worked with community leaders in Canley to develop an inclusive art and culture project.

In 2022, we launched a partnership with University College Birmingham (UCB), to address skills gaps and support businesses in the West Midlands. Following two years of collaboration between Warwick and UCB, the partnership aims to broaden participation and access to education for people in some of the region’s most disadvantaged communities, and to create skills pathways led by regional business needs. The collaboration sets out to deliver these goals, inspiring young people by providing technical training partnerships and degree apprenticeships, as well as supporting young entrepreneurs.

Partnerships

As part of its strategic development, Warwick established a formal alliance with Monash University in 2011 - building on a number of years of strong and productive relationships between the two universities. The partnership will help meet the increasing student, industry and government demand for universities to produce graduates with a global education, and undertake research that aims to address world-relevant and strategically important problems that have proved too big for any one institution to date. Warwick also has partnerships with the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM) and Queen Mary, University of London, to enhance its research activities through collaborative research and new approaches to outreach and widening participation. In 2014, the University’s Technical College, the WMG Academy for Young Engineers was launched, followed in 2016 by a second academy in Solihull. The Academy offers young people new qualifications based on the real-world skills and experiences needed in the advanced engineering industry. The qualifications on offer, endorsed by industry and enriched by real-life world of work experiences and hands-on problem-solving projects, will increase the employability prospects of young people and challenge traditional ways of learning.

The University is a founding partner of The Alan Turing Institute alongside the universities of Cambridge, Edinburgh, Oxford, UCL and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. The Institute is the UK’s national institute for data science and artificial intelligence.

Campus Developments

The University's first buildings, at Gibbet Hill, were completed in 1965; by 1970 the Library, Science and Arts Buildings and Rootes Residences had been built on central campus. During the 1970s, further academic and residential accommodation was built on campus, including the Social Sciences building in 1977, the Senate House (now Coventry House) and the Arts Centre (1974) and the Students' Union Building (1975). In 1979, the former Coventry College of Education merged with the University to form the Institute of Education, now the Centre for Education Studies and the Centre for Professional Education.

The 1980s saw construction of the Jack Martin student residences. In 1984, the University of Warwick Science Park was opened on a site adjacent to the University, a joint venture between the University and the local authorities of Coventry City, Warwickshire and West Midlands Enterprise. This has developed to become one of the UK's most successful Science Parks with satellites in Coventry and Warwick and managed space in Solihull. More recently the University has invested in and successfully won government support for a series of initiatives to develop a culture in which academic inventions can be exploited either through licensing or in spin-off companies, with Warwick Ventures (now Warwick Innovations) being founded in 1999 and made a limited company in its own right in 2010.

In 1989, in partnership with Rover and Rolls Royce plc., the University extended the new Advanced Technology Centre to provide extensive new research facilities. During the 1990s, and particularly under the Vice-Chancellorship of Sir Brian Follett, the built campus continued to develop. Between 1993 and 2003 over £180m of new buildings were erected including Arthur Vick, Claycroft, Lakeside and Heronbank residences, the International Manufacturing Centre (1994 and recently extended), the Ramphal Building (1996), and the Medical School Building and associated Biomedical Research facilities (2001). Other notable developments have been a joint Students' Union and Retail building (1998), Sports Pavilion (1998), the first two phases of a new building for the Warwick Business School (1999 and 2001) and a new building for Computer Science (2000).

A new Mathematics and Statistics building was opened in 2004 and a major investment in developing the Sports Centre provided high-class sports facilities, amongst the best of any British university. Warwick’s Institute of Advanced Studies launched in 2007 and the Institute of Advanced Teaching and Learning was launched in 2010. The Warwick Digital Laboratory was opened by former Prime Minister Gordon Brown in July 2008 and, as well as the Arts Centre, 2009 saw the redevelopment of the Students' Union building with extensive improvements to retail space, cafes, bars and performance areas. A new student residence, Bluebell, was opened in September 2011, along with the Material and Analytical Sciences building. In 2012, the Sherborne student residence was opened, as well as the International Institute for Product and Service Innovation - a £12 million programme designed to help Midlands SMEs access some of the world’s leading product and service design technology.

In 2014, plans were launched for £350 million of capital investment including £100 million for our National Automotive Innovation Campus, £50 million on two new student halls of residence, £35 million on sports and wellbeing facilities and £25 million on new interdisciplinary research labs. In 2014, WBS opened its new base in the Shard in London, containing two lecture theatres, meeting spaces and an IT lab. 2015 saw the first stages of work on the National Automotive Innovation Centre and the Teaching and Learning building, among a series of works to improve the roads through and around campus, the development of a new bus interchange and a new plaza area in between the Arts Centre and the Students’ Union, named Benefactors’ Place. 2016 saw the opening of the University's first building dedicated to teaching and learning, The Oculus, as well as continued improvement to roads and the development of a new plaza area and bus interchange on campus as well as the opening of a brand new 600-space car park.

The new Mathematical Science Building opened in October 2018, adjacent to the existing Maths and Stats building (Zeeman Building) and the Computer Science building, in Academic Square, on central campus. The six-storey building provides space for research, teaching and collaboration and houses staff who work on interdisciplinary initiatives. The Materials Engineering Centre (MEC) is a fast-track new build project that took just 18 months from inception to completion in October 2018. The MEC is a key facility for the Global Research Priority in Materials and contributes to the Energy, Innovative Manufacturing and Sustainable Cities priorities. In January 2019, the Kirby Corner Car Park opened, offering circa 1,300 spaces, wider parking bays, electric vehicle charging and motorcycle parking.

The Sports and Wellness Hub opened in April 2019. The facility includes a spacious 230-station gym and a 25-metre, 12-lane swimming pool – both enjoying views of the surrounding woodland. It also features a 12-court sports arena, six glass-backed squash courts and a cutting-edge climbing centre. The design has sustainability at the heart, incorporating architectural and technical to leave a smaller footprint on the planet. The building won the ‘Award for Excellence’ at the annual Sports and Play Construction Association (SAPCA) awards. The Hub forms a part of our wider strategy to encourage a healthy University life and to bring world-class facilities to our international campus.

Opened in 2021, the £54.3m Interdisciplinary Biomedical Research Building (IBRB) brings to life the University’s commitment to delivering world-leading research in neuroscience, microbiology and infection, cell biology, and disease models, supporting and facilitating interdisciplinary biomedical research of the highest quality. The new building creates a dynamic teaching and learning environment for life sciences students and those studying medicine at Warwick. It provides a world-class environment, including a new 400-seat lecture theatre and many new social and collaboration spaces, in which to train future generations of biomedical researchers. The IBRB is our most environmentally sustainable building on campus to date, surpassing the award-winning credentials of the Sports and Wellness Hub and demonstrating the University’s continued commitment to addressing the climate emergency.

February 2021 saw the opening of the National Automotive Innovation Centre (NAIC) by HRH The Prince of Wales. The NAIC, housed within the Professor Lord Bhattacharyya Building, is a partnership between WMG, Jaguar Land Rover and Tata Motors European Technical Centre. With over 1,000 designers, engineers and researchers located within the Centre, working on a range of future vehicle and mobility solution projects, the Centre hosts inspiration and collaboration on research projects across all sectors working together.

The development of new residences at Cryfield Village was completed for 2022. The series of townhouse-style apartments and studios provide 648 new bedrooms, forming part of an overall University investment of £62m in new student accommodation which offer 830 new bedrooms on campus.

The Faculty of Arts building opened in December 2021, uniting all of our Arts departments under one roof. The £57.8m, eight-storey building puts collaboration and engagement at the heart of a new campus 'cultural quarter', providing an interdisciplinary learning and research space. Designed with the principles of collaboration, creativity, inspiration and innovation embedded at its core, it spans 15,000m2 of floor space with four distinct clusters set around a grand central staircase within a full height atrium. It features an antiquities room, cinema and screening rooms, theatre studios and rehearsal rooms, collaboration spaces, a media lab and edit suite along with multi-purpose events and exhibition spaces.

In 2024 the University unveiled a £700m investment in its campus as part of its ambitious Connect Programme. This is the largest single investment in campus facilities across its entire 60-year history.

The unprecedented investment will focus on the Social Sciences and STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) and will facilitate an expansion in interdisciplinary education and research opportunities and new courses in both areas. The investment will also support expansion of the University’s purposeful collaboration and partnerships regionally, nationally and internationally.

Plans were revealed for phase one of the investment, the STEM Connect Programme. This will see innovative spaces built for new state-of-the-art research and education programmes.

From teaching rooms to laboratories, the facilities will enable the University to build on its innovation and research excellence and enhance its campus experience to create more learning opportunities for undergraduate and postgraduate students.

Warwick Arts Centre

The Warwick Arts Centre, the first phase of which was built in 1974, attracts around 280,000 visitors every year to over 2,000 events and has a significant national and international reputation. It was originally funded by the considerable generosity of the Martin Trust. The Arts Centre has undergone significant re-development, firstly in 2008/09 with the refurbishment of the Butterworth Hall and investment in seating, acoustics and technical equipment, accessibility and improvements to the backstage areas for artists, along with the addition of a flexible rehearsal/performance space.

Warwick Arts Centre reopened in October 2021 following a major refurbishment project to create a modern, larger space. The existing gallery and cinema were replaced by a large ground-floor exhibition space/gallery, three high-quality digital auditoria, a new restaurant, and extended foyers. The 20:20 Project has transformed the Arts Centre into a fully accessible and sustainable creative hub, with the facilities to develop digital exhibitions, broadcast live significant cultural and sporting events, and to become a hub for digital research and design, contemporary visual arts, cultural tourism and business training as well as offering networking and conferencing suites.