Cambridge University Council

The University of Cambridge is a public collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the third-oldest university in continuous operation. The university's founding followed the arrival of scholars who left the University of Oxford for Cambridge after a dispute with local townspeople. The two ancient English universities, although sometimes described as rivals, share many common features and are often jointly referred to as Oxbridge. In 1231, 22 years after its founding, the university was recognised with a royal charter granted by King Henry III. The University of Cambridge includes 31 semi-autonomous constituent colleges and over 150 academic departments, faculties, and other institutions organised into six schools. All of the colleges are self-governing institutions within the university, managing their own personnel and policies, and all students are required to have a college affiliation within the university. Undergraduate teaching at Cambridge is centred on weekly small-group supervisions in the colleges with lectures, seminars, laboratory work, and occasionally further supervision provided by the central university faculties and departments.The university operates eight cultural and scientific museums, including the Fitzwilliam Museum and Cambridge University Botanic Garden. Cambridge's 116 libraries hold a total of approximately 16 million books, around nine million of which are in Cambridge University Library, a legal deposit library and one of the world's largest academic libraries. Cambridge affiliates (alumni, academics and others holding official appointments) have won 121 Nobel Prizes. Among the university's notable alumni are 194 Olympic medal-winning athletes, and several historically iconic and transformational individuals in their respective fields, including Francis Bacon, Lord Byron, Oliver Cromwell, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, John Maynard Keynes, John Milton, Vladimir Nabokov, Jawaharlal Nehru, Isaac Newton, Bertrand Russell, Alan Turing, and Ludwig Wittgenstein. As of 2023, the university is ranked second in the world by QS World University Rankings, third in the world by the Times Higher Education World University Rankings, fourth in the world by the Academic Ranking of World Universities, second in the UK by the Complete University Guide, and third in the UK by the Guardian University Guide and the Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide.

The Cambridge–MIT Institute, or CMI, was a partnership between the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 2008, CMI issued a final report describing its activities from late 2000 to 2006, stating that it had "evolved into the CMI Partnership Programme." The CMI website hosted by the University of Cambridge later noted that, "CMI activities are now fully embedded within the two institutions."It was proposed by former British Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown in the summer of 1998, who wanted to bring the entrepreneurial spirit of MIT to British universities. Cambridge University was chosen as MIT's partner because of its strong record in science/engineering and the abundance of high-technology firms located in the Cambridge area known as Silicon Fen. Funded both by government and industry partners, including BP and British Telecom, CMI experimented with new ways of bringing universities, industries, and government together to ensure that research findings are quickly exploited for the benefit of society and the economy of the United Kingdom. This included funding new ideas in research and education, and the study and assessment of knowledge exchange experiments. Aiming ultimately to enhance competitiveness, productivity and entrepreneurship in the UK, CMI also worked with a network of partners across the UK, holding a range of events to share lessons learnt, to develop effective models for national uptake, and to facilitate the debate on issues ranging from the role of universities in stimulating innovation, to ways of teaching the new skills required by emerging technologies. One of the major initiatives arising from the collaboration of MIT and Cambridge was the development of silent aircraft technologies.

The Old Schools are part of the University of Cambridge, in the centre of Cambridge, England. The Old Schools house the Cambridge University Offices, which form the main administration for the University.The building is Grade I listed. It is two storeys high with ashlar facing and a parapet above. Within the Old Schools are West Court and Cobble Court. The Old Schools building is located at the end of Trinity Lane and is surrounded by other historic University and College buildings. To the north is Gonville and Caius College. To the east is the University of Cambridge Senate House where degree ceremonies are held, on King's Parade. To the south, the scene is dominated by the large King's College Chapel. To the west are Trinity Hall and Clare College. The Old Schools Site covers the Old Schools, the Senate House, and Great St Mary's, the University Church.

The Senate House is a 1720s building of the University of Cambridge in England, used formerly for meetings of its senate and now mainly for graduation ceremonies.

King's College Chapel is the chapel of King's College in the University of Cambridge. It is considered one of the finest examples of late Perpendicular Gothic English architecture and features the world's largest fan vault. The Chapel was built in phases by a succession of kings of England from 1446 to 1515, a period which spanned the Wars of the Roses and three subsequent decades. The Chapel's large stained glass windows were completed by 1531, and its early Renaissance rood screen was erected in 1532–36. The Chapel is an active house of worship, and home of the King's College Choir. It is a landmark and a commonly used symbol of the city of Cambridge.

King's Parade is a street in central Cambridge, England. The street continues north as Trinity Street and then St John's Street, and south as Trumpington Street. It is a major tourist area in Cambridge, commanding a central position in the University of Cambridge area of the city. It is also a place frequented by many cyclists and by students travelling between lectures during term-time. King's College is located on the west side of the street, hence the name, and dominates the scene with the east end of its large Chapel on view. Also on the street, just to the north, is the University of Cambridge Senate House, mainly used for degree ceremonies. This area is known as Senate House Hill. Opposite the Senate House is Great St Mary's, the historic University Church.

Bowes & Bowes was a bookselling and publishing company based in Cambridge, England.

A stained glass window commemorating British statistician, geneticist, and eugenicist R. A. Fisher was installed in the dining hall of Gonville and Caius College in Cambridge, England in 1989. It depicts a 7x7 Latin square, as featured in Fisher's The Design of Experiments. The idea for the window came from college fellow, A. W. F. Edwards, and the execution was the work of Maria McClafferty.At first there were two windows, the other featuring a Venn diagram to commemorate John Venn, both installed in time for the 1990 centenary of Fisher's birth. In 1992 the set was expanded with four more windows representing scientific achievements with links to the college: a DNA spiral celebrating Francis Crick, and windows celebrating Charles Scott Sherrington, George Green and James Chadwick.In June 2020, during the global George Floyd protests, the college's Gate of Honour was spray-painted in protest at the installation and at Fisher's association with eugenics, and the college announced on 24 June that the window would be removed because of Fisher's tarnished reputation. The removal was subsequently carried out.The issue of the Fisher window will continue to be addressed in a working group and a public conference organized by the college to consider wider issues of diversity and representation.

Gonville and Caius College, often referred to simply as Caius ( KEEZ), is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1348 by Edmund Gonville, it is the fourth-oldest of the University of Cambridge's 31 colleges and one of the wealthiest. In 1557, it was refounded by alumnus John Caius. The college has been attended by many students who have gone on to significant accomplishment, including fifteen Nobel Prize winners, the second-highest of any Oxbridge college after Trinity College, Cambridge.The college has long associations with the teaching of medicine, especially due to its prominent alumni in the medical profession. It also has globally-recognized and prestigious academic programmes in law, economics, English literature, and history. Famous Gonville and Caius alumni include physicians John Caius (who gave the college the caduceus in its insignia) and William Harvey. Other alumni in the sciences include Francis Crick (joint discoverer of the structure of DNA with James Watson), James Chadwick (discoverer of the neutron), and Howard Florey (developer of penicillin). Stephen Hawking, previously Cambridge's Lucasian Chair of Mathematics Emeritus, was a fellow of the college from 1965 until his death in 2018. Other notable alumni include John Venn (inventor of the Venn diagram), former Chancellor of the Exchequer and Father of the House of Commons Kenneth Clarke, comedian and Channel 4 television presenter Jimmy Carr, and former Downing Street director of communications Alastair Campbell. Several streets in the city, including Harvey Road, Glisson Road, and Gresham Road, are named after Gonville and Caius alumni. The college and its masters have been influential in the development of the university, including in the founding of other colleges, including Trinity Hall and Darwin College and providing land on Sidgwick Site on which Faculty of Law was built.

St Edward's Passage, known in the 18th century as Chain Lane, is a Y-shaped alleyway in Cambridge, England, between King's Parade—opposite the main gate of King's College—and Peas Hill. It houses the entrance and churchyard of the Church of St Edward King and Martyr; the Cambridge Arts Theatre; several cottages; G. David, an independent bookshop run from the same building since 1896; a few businesses; and student accommodation. It is a narrow, dark lane, with riven-stone paving, which opens out onto the much wider and sunnier King's Parade.Excavations on the southern side in 1995 suggested that the lane had been established by the 13th century. It is marked on Richard Lyne's map of the city from 1574, the earliest known map of Cambridge, and on John Hammond's from 1592. According to Cambridge City Council, it "preserv[es] a sense of the cheek-by-jowl nature of the early town".

On June 28, 2009, British astrophysicist Stephen Hawking hosted a party for time travelers in the University of Cambridge. The physicist arranged for balloons, champagne, and nibbles for his guests, but didn't send out the invites until the next day, after the party was over.The party was held at the Gonville and Caius College on Trinity Street (52° 12' 21" N, 0° 7' 4.7" E) at 12:00 UT on June 28, 2009. Hawking patiently awaited the arrival of time-traveling guests whom he planned to invite later. However, despite his efforts, no one appeared. Nevertheless, Hawking remained hopeful, keeping the possibility open for his invitation to be accepted in the future.

Trinity Lane is a street in the centre of Cambridge, England that passes through portions of the University of Cambridge, one of the world's most prestigious universities. The lane leads off Trinity Street. At the entrance to the lane from Trinity Street as it leads west, Trinity College is located on the north side of the lane, including Nevile's Gate, and Gonville and Caius College is on the south side. The lane then turns south around the back of Gonville and Caius. Here, Trinity Hall is to the west. At the end of the lane is Clare College to the west and King's College with its huge Chapel blocking the way to the south. Here the Old Schools are also to be found to the east and beyond that the University of Cambridge Senate House where degree ceremonies are held, on King's Parade. The Old Schools now house the Cambridge University Offices, which form the main administration for the University.Senate House Passage is a pedestrian passageway that links from near the end of Trinity Lane back to Trinity Street. Gonville and Caius College is to the north and the Senate House is to the south.