Facts and Figures
Oxford at a glance
- There are over 21,000 students at Oxford, including 11,723 undergraduates and 9,327 postgraduates.
- Oxford
University employs over 10,000 people. When those employed solely by the
colleges of the University and Oxford University Press are included, the
number of people employed totals over 18,000, making the University the
largest employer in Oxford and the second largest in Oxfordshire.
- In the 2011 National Student Survey, 97% of Oxford
students found their courses intellectually stimulating, compared to 89% in
other Russell Group universities and 84% of all English university students.
-
93% of Oxford students are satisfied with their
course quality, compared to 88% in other Russell Group universities and 84% of
all English university students).
- Oxford
has one of the lowest drop-out rates in the UK: figures published in
Spring 2011 by the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) show
that only 1.1% of Oxford students dropped out, compared with the
national average of 6.5%.
- 95% of Oxford leavers are employed six months after
graduating.
- Every
year more than 15,000 people take part in courses offered by the
Department for Continuing Education, making Oxford University one of
the largest providers of continuing education in the UK.
Undergraduate admissions and access
- Oxford
is very competitive: over 17,000 people applied for around 3,000 undergraduate
places for entry in 2010, an increase of 12% on the previous year.
- That
means that Oxford receives, on average, more than five applications
for each available place.
- Applications
to Oxford have increased by 84% in ten years, while the number of places
available has remained roughly the same.
- 98.6%
of those taking A-levels who enter the University achieve grades of
AAA or better.
- The
majority of Oxford’s UK undergraduates come from state schools. Latest
figures (entry 2010) show that, for UK students attending schools or
colleges in the UK, 55.4% of places on undergraduate courses went to
applicants from the state sector, and 44.6% went to applicants from the
independent sector.
- For
entry in October 2011, the percentage of offers that went to state school
UK students rose to 58.5%.
- The
University conducts more than 24,000 interviews for around 10,500
applicants over the two-week interview period in December.
- Oxford
spends over £2.5 million each year on outreach activities, in addition
to the more than £6.6 million it spends
on bursaries.
- Oxford, through its outreach work reaches 76% of schools across the
country with post-16 provision – virtually all schools that field
candidates capable of making a competitive application to Oxford.
- Oxford holds
over 1,500 outreach activities annually with groups from primary age
upwards, including summer schools, school visits, student shadowing
schemes, e-mentoring, aspiration days and events for teachers.
- Oxford’s flagship access programme is the UNIQ summer school. 133
of the 2010 UNIQ cohort went on to win an Oxford place, meaning that over
a quarter (26.2%) of all attendees will go on to study here. Of those UNIQ
students who put in applications, over 39% ended up with places – against
an overall success rate for Oxford applicants of around 20%.
- By
2014 UNIQ will be the largest free university summer school in the UK,
with 1,000 places available.
Financial support for undergraduates
- For students starting in October 2012, Oxford
has the most generous no-strings attached financial support for UK and EU
students from the lowest income households.
- While many universities are offering either fee
waivers or bursaries, Oxford will provide both.
- Based on current student profiles, one in six
students will receive a fee waiver and a quarter will receive a bursary.
- The lowest-income students will receive support
totalling £10,000 in their first year and over £6,000 in every later year.
- Oxford will spend 50% of its additional fee
income on access – that’s more than any other university in England and nearly
double the sector average.
- OFFA (Office for Fair Access) ranks Oxford as
costing students less than nearly two thirds of all English universities.
- Oxford spent £6.6 million centrally on bursaries in
2010-11, on top of scholarships and bursaries offered by individual colleges.
- Nearly 2,700 current students (c.27% of UK
undergraduates at the University) hold Oxford Opportunity Bursaries.
Postgraduate admissions and support
- Graduate
students make up around 44% of the total student body at Oxford.
- 4.3% of all the UK’s
graduate research students are studying at Oxford University.
- Oxford
offers 328 different graduate degree programmes, and has just over 9,300
graduate students from more than 120 countries.
- In 2010,
the number of applicants for postgraduate study at Oxford surpassed that of
undergraduate applications for the first time, as it also did in 2011.
- Over the
six years from 2005/06 to 2010/11, applications for graduate study have
increased by nearly 87%.
- The University received more
than 17,500 applications for graduate study for entry in 2009/10, an
increase of 29% on the previous year.
- Nearly
58% of applications come from outside the EU, and 76% from outside
the UK.
- Overall,
61% of Oxford’s current graduate students come from outside the UK.
- More
than £11.5 million is awarded to graduate students each year through over
30 central University scholarship schemes. In addition, there are over 400
full or partial scholarships available through colleges and departments.
Oxford international
- 41%
of our academic staff are citizens of foreign countries.
- Our academic
staff come from almost 100 different countries and territories.
The largest groups of international academic staff are from the USA,
Germany, Italy, China (excluding Hong Kong), Australia, France, Ireland,
India and Canada.
- Over
a third of our total student body - nearly 8,000 students
- are citizens of foreign countries, including 15%
of undergraduates and 61% of graduate students.
- Students
come to Oxford from 140 countries and territories. The largest groups of
international students come from the USA (1,549), China and Hong Kong
(742), Germany (718), Canada (404), India (363), Australia
(249), Italy (236), Ireland (218), France (206), and Greece (179).
- Oxford
has more than a dozen centres and institutes specialising in the study of
specific countries and regions.
- Oxford
is the leading centre for the study of China in Europe and has one of the
top five departments in the world in Japanese Studies.
- Oxford
is one of the leading centres for the study of globalisation, through the
Oxford Martin School, the Blavatnik School of Government, the Programme on
Global Economic Governance, the Oxford Department of International
Development (which created the world’s first refugee studies programme),
and our global health programmes.
- Oxford’s
Centre for Tropical Medicine conducts cutting edge research at its
laboratories in Kenya, Vietnam and Thailand.
- Oxford
boasts one of the most extensive global alumni networks in the world, with
more than 190 groups in over 70 countries.
- Oxford
University Press, publisher of the famous dictionaries and a department of
the University, is the world’s largest university press. It
has offices in more than 50 countries, and more than 5,000 employees
worldwide.
- In
China alone, 14 million school children use Oxford books every year, and
internationally around 16 million children use Oxford ELT materials to
learn English.
- The
University has offices in New York, Tokyo and Hong Kong.
Oxford research
- Oxford's
research activity involves more than 70 departments, the colleges, over
1,600 academic staff, more than 3,500 research and research support
staff, and over 4,600 graduate research students.
- Oxford
has more world-leading academics (rated 4* in the 2008 national Research
Assessment Exercise) than any other UK university. Oxford also has the
highest number of world-leading or internationally excellent (4* or 3*)
academics in the UK.
- At
graduate level, 57% of students are studying for a higher degree by
research.
- External
research grants and contracts continue to be the University’s largest
source of income. In 2010-11, 41% (£376.7 million) of income came
from external research sponsors.
- Oxford
consistently has the highest research income from external sponsors
of any UK university.
- Oxford,
through Isis Innovation Limited, our wholly owned technology transfer
company, pioneered the successful commercial exploitation of academic
research and invention. Isis has created more than 70 companies. It
files, on average, more than one patent application each week and
manages over 360 patent application families and 460 licence agreements.
- Oxfordshire is one of Europe’s leading centres of
enterprise, innovation and knowledge. The county’s growth rate in
high-tech employment remains one of the highest in the UK and many of its 1,500
high-tech companies have links to Oxford University.
Oxford awards and rankings
- Oxford’s
academic community includes 80 Fellows of the Royal Society and 100
Fellows of the British Academy.
- In
2011, eight Oxford professors were elected to the Fellowship of the
British Academy.
- In
2011, eight Oxford professors were elected to the Fellowship of the Royal
Society.
- In
2011, four Oxford professors were elected to the Fellowship of the
Academy of Medical Sciences.
- The
successes of Oxford’s academics are recognised regularly in the award of
prestigious international prizes, such as the Louis-Jeantet Prize for
Medicine, given to Professor Fiona Powrie in 2012 and Professor Peter Ratcliffe in 2009; the Gairdner Award for medical
research, awarded in 2010 to Professor Peter Ratcliffe and Professor Nick
White; the International Balzan Prize, awarded to Professor Joe Silk
in 2011 and to Professor Terence Cave in 2009; and the
Gairdner Award for medical research, bestowed in 2007 on
Professor Kim Nasmyth.
- Oxford
University has won eight Queen's Anniversary Prizes for
Higher Education, more than any other university. The prizes
were awarded to: the Wildlife
Conservation Research Unit (WildCRU) (2011); the University's museums, libraries and
archives (2009); the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography at Oxford
University Press (2007), the Clinical Trial Service Unit (2005), the
Refugee Studies Centre (2002), the Centre for Clinical Vaccinology &
Tropical Medicine (2000), the Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine
(1996), and Isis Innovation Ltd (1994).
- Oxford was ranked first in
the UK and fourth in the world in the Times
Higher Education Supplement’s World University Rankings
2011-2012. In the disciplinary tables, Oxford was ranked first in the
world in clinical, pre-clinical and health subjects; third for social
sciences; fourth for life sciences; seventh for the arts and humanities
and for engineering and technology; and tenth for physical sciences.
- Oxford
is repeatedly ranked in the top ten of universities worldwide in the
annual tables compiled by Shanghai Jiaotong University.
- In
June 2011, the annual Times Good University Guide named Oxford
Britain’s top university for the tenth year running.
- In
the same year Oxford was ranked second in the UK by The Guardian, The
Independent and The Sunday
Times.
- In
the Financial Times Global Rankings (Jan 2011), the Saïd Business
School's MBA programme was
ranked 27th in the world and third in the UK. The Saïd
Business School is also ranked 11th in the top European Business Schools
(Dec 2010) and 11th in the world and first in the UK for Executive
Education programmes (May 2011) by the Financial Times.
Oxford colleges
- There
are 38 colleges and 6 permanent private halls at Oxford.
- The
collegiate system is at the heart of the University’s success, giving
students and academics the benefits of belonging to both a large,
internationally renowned institution and to a small, interdisciplinary
academic community.
- Colleges
bring together leading academics and students across subjects and year
groups, and from different cultures and countries.
- The
relatively small number of students at each college allows for close and
supportive personal attention to be given to the induction, academic development
and welfare of individual students.
- Colleges
invest heavily in facilities including extensive library and IT provision,
accommodation and welfare support, and sports and social facilities.
- Thirty colleges
and five halls admit students for both graduate and undergraduate degrees.
Green Templeton, Linacre, Nuffield, St Antony’s, St Cross and Wolfson
Colleges admit only graduate students, as does Kellogg College, which
supports the lifelong learning work of the University for adult,
part-time, and professional development students. All Souls is unique
among Oxford colleges because it has no junior members: all are Fellows
(except the Warden).
- All
colleges accept both men and women.
- The
University’s oldest colleges are University College, Balliol College, and
Merton College, all of which were established by the 13th century.
- Green
Templeton College, which came into existence in October 2008 following the
merger of Green College and Templeton College, is the University’s
newest college.
- St
Catherine’s College, which takes both undergraduate and graduate students,
currently has the largest number of students (788),
while some of the permanent private halls have fewer than a
hundred student members.
Museums, collections and libraries
- The Bodleian Libraries form the largest
university library system in the United Kingdom. The combined library
collections number more than 11 million printed items, in addition to 30,000
e-journals and other materials in different formats.
- The
Bodleian Library, the University’s main research library, dates from 1602
and is globally acknowledged to be one of the greatest libraries in the
world. Its priceless collections include the papers of six British Prime
Ministers; a Gutenberg Bible; the earliest surviving book written wholly in
English; a quarter of the world’s original copies of the Magna Carta; and
almost 10,000 western medieval and renaissance manuscripts.
- Over
40% of users of the Bodleian Libraries are people from outside the
University.
- Over
2 million people visit the University’s six museums and collections every
year, including a significant number of children on school visits.
- The
Ashmolean Museum, established in 1683, is the oldest museum in the UK and
one of the oldest in the world. It houses the University’s extensive
collections of art and antiquities, ranging back over four millennia.
- The
Museum of the History of Science is housed in the world’s oldest surviving
purpose-built museum building. It contains the world’s finest collection
of historic scientific instruments.
- The
University Museum of Natural History houses the University's collections
of zoological, entomological, palaeontological and mineral specimens. With
4.5 million specimens it is the largest collection of its type outside of
the national collections.
- The
Pitt Rivers Museum holds one of the world’s finest collections of
anthropology and archaeology, with objects from every continent and from
throughout human history.
- The
University of Oxford Botanic Garden is the oldest botanic garden in
Britain, and forms the most compact yet diverse collection of plants in
the world.
- The
Bate Collection of Musical Instruments celebrates the history and
development of the musical instruments of the Western Classical tradition,
from the medieval period to present day.
- Christ
Church Picture Gallery houses an important collection of 300 Old Master
paintings and almost 2,000 drawings in a purpose-built gallery of
considerable architectural interest.
Oxford finance
- In
2010-11, total University income was £919.6 million.
- The
University’s largest source of income continues to be external research
grants and contracts. In 2010-11 41% (£376.7 million) of total income was
derived from external research sponsors.
- Of
the remaining income, 22% came from grants from the Higher Education
Funding Council for England and the Teaching and Development Agency; 16%
from academic fees; and 21% from other sources including trading
activities and investments.
- Oxford
consistently has the highest research income from external sponsors
of any UK university.
- Total
University expenditure in 2010-11 was £908.2 million.
- In
May 2008 Oxford launched the biggest fund-raising campaign ever by a
European university, aiming to raise at least £1.25 billion. Over £1 billion
of this total has now been raised.
