Facts and Figures
Student Life
- There are over 20,000 students at Oxford, including 11,734 undergraduates and 8,101 postgraduates.
- Oxford has one of the lowest drop-out rates in the UK: figures published in summer 2009 by the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) show that only 1.8 per cent of Oxford students dropped out, compared with the national average of 9 per cent.
- 53 per cent of undergraduates are studying for degrees in the humanities and social sciences, and 43 per cent in the medical, mathematical, physical and life sciences. The rest are studying for undergraduate level diplomas and certificates offered by the Department for Continuing Education.
- The tutorial is at the core of undergraduate teaching and learning at Oxford. It offers students a unique learning experience in which they meet regularly with their tutor, either on a one-to-one basis or with one or two other students.
- Undergraduates attend, on average, one hour-long tutorial every week and undertake a considerable number of hours’ preparatory work for each tutorial, including background reading, essay-writing and problem-solving.
- At graduate level, 36 per cent of students are studying for higher degrees in the medical, mathematical, physical and life sciences and 56 per cent in the humanities and social sciences. The rest are studying for postgraduate certificates and diplomas offered by the Deparment for Continuing Education.
- Six months after graduation 90% of students who graduated in the year ending July 2008 were employed or engaged in further study.
- Every year almost 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
- Over 17,000 people applied for an undergraduate place for entry in 2010, an increase of 12 per cent on the previous year.
- Applications for undergraduate places have risen by 61 per cent over the last ten years. The number of places available has remained roughly the same.
- Oxford receives, on average, five applications for each available place.
- 98.2 per cent of those taking A-levels who enter the University achieve grades of AAA or better.
- The collegiate University conducts more than 24,000 interviews for around 10,000 applicants over the two-week interview period in December.
- Oxford’s bursary scheme, the Oxford Opportunity Bursaries, is one of the most generous undergraduate bursary schemes in the UK. It is worth up to £10,550 for a three year degree course or £13,775 for a four year degree course. In contrast, the typical annual bursary in England for a student receiving the full maintenance grant is £900.
- Nearly 2,000 bursaries worth, in total, £4.5 million were awarded in the academic year 2008-9 to undergraduates, PGCE students and Graduate Entry Medical students.
- Oxford spent 28 per cent of its additional fee income in 2008-9 on bursaries for lower income students.
- In 2008-9, the University and colleges spent around £2.8m on outreach activities, in addition to the almost £5m a year spent on bursaries.
- In 2008-9, staff from across the collegiate University conducted over 1500 outreach activities with groups from primary age upwards, including summer schools, school visits, student shadowing schemes, e-mentoring, aspiration days and events for teachers.
- The majority of Oxford’s UK undergraduates come from state schools. Latest figures show that, for UK students attending schools or colleges in the UK, 55.4 per cent of places on undergraduate courses went to applicants from the maintained sector, and 44.6 per cent went to applicants from the independent sector.
Postgraduate Admissions
- The University received 17,000 applications for postgraduate study for entry in 2009.
- Graduate students make up 40 per cent of the total student body.
- 63 per cent of graduate students at Oxford are from outside the UK.
- At graduate level, 57 per cent of students are studying for a higher degree by research, and 43 per cent are following postgraduate taught courses.
- Oxford is responding to the demands of students and employers by developing a range of new taught masters courses, many of which cut across traditional disciplinary boundaries. These include: Contemporary India; Film Aesthetics; Law and Finance; Major Programme Management; Medicinal Chemistry for Cancer; Modern Chinese Studies; Social Science of the Internet; and Software and Systems Security.
Oxford International
- More than a third (38 per cent) of our academic staff, including 30 per cent of teaching and research staff and 43 per cent of research-only staff, are citizens of foreign countries.
- Our staff come from 85 different countries. The largest groups of international academic staff are from the USA, Germany, China and Hong Kong, Australia, France and Italy.
- The number of international academic staff at Oxford has risen by 57 per cent in just five years (2003-2008).
- Over a third (35 per cent) of our total student body - more than 7,100 students - are citizens of foreign countries, including 14 per cent of full-time undergraduates and 63 per cent of full-time graduate students.
- Students come to Oxford from 142 countries and territories. The largest groups of international students come from the USA (1,421), China and Hong Kong (705), Germany (632), Canada (355), India (308), Australia (253), France (198), Ireland (188) and Italy (178).
- 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 James Martin 21st Century School, 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 160 branches in over 60 countries.
- There are more than 46,000 Oxford alumni resident in 188 countries outside the UK.
- Oxford University Press (OUP), publisher of the famous dictionaries and a department of the University, is the world’s largest university press. It has publishing operations in 16 countries, sales offices in 90 countries, and almost 5,000 employees worldwide.
- The University has offices in New York, Tokyo and Hong Kong.
Oxford Colleges
- The University has 38 independent and self-governing colleges, and 6 permanent private halls.
- 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 (715), while one of the graduate-only colleges and a number of permanent private halls have fewer than a hundred student members.
Oxford Research
- Oxford's research activity involves more than 70 departments, the colleges, over 1,600 academic staff, more than 3,500 contract researchers and around 3,600 postgraduate 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 per cent 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 2008-9, 40 per cent (£340.5 million) of income came from external research sponsors.
- Research income has doubled in the last five years and grew by almost 20 per cent between 2008 and 2009 alone.
- Oxford consistently has the highest research income from external sponsors of any UK university.
- The number of new research grants and contracts won in 2008-9 reached over 1,900.
- Oxford, through Isis Innovation Limited, our wholly owned technology transfer company, pioneered the successful commercial exploitation of academic research and invention. It has created more than 60 companies and files, on average, one patent application each week.
- In the year to March 2009, Isis Innovation's trading turnover increased from £4.8 million to £5.8 million, four new spin-out companies were created and the number of new consultancy agreements almost doubled to 151.
Oxford Awards and Rankings
- Oxford’s academic community includes 80 Fellows of the Royal Society and 100 Fellows of the British Academy.
- In 2009, three Oxford professors were elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Society.
- In 2009, four Oxford professors were elected to the Fellowship of the Academy of Medical Sciences.
- In 2009, seven Oxford academics were elected to the Fellowship of the British Academy.
- In 2009, two Oxford academics were elected to the Fellowship of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
- The successes of Oxford’s academics are recognised regularly in the award of prestigious international prizes, such as the International Balzan Prize, awarded to Professor Terence Cave in 2009; the Louis-Jeantet Prize for Medicine, given to Professor Peter Ratcliffe in 2009; the Royal Society's Copley Medal, awarded in 2008 to Professor Sir Roger Penrose; the Gairdner International Award for achievements in medical research, bestowed in 2007 on Professor Kim Nasmyth; and a Lasker Award for Clinical Medical Research, won in 2005 by Professor Sir Ed Southern.
- Oxford University has won seven Queen's Anniversary Prizes for HIgher Education, more than any other university. The prizes were awarded to: 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 joint fifth in the world in the Times Higher Education Supplement’s World University Rankings 2009. In the disciplinary tables, Oxford was ranked second in the world in art and humanities and in life sciences and biomedicine; third in the social sciences; fifth in the natural sciences; and eleventh in engineering and information technology.
- Oxford is repeatedly ranked in the top ten of universities worldwide in the annual tables compiled by Shanghai Jiaotong University.
- In September 2009, Oxford University was ranked first in the UK by the annual Sunday Times Good University Guide, completing a clean sweep of British national newspaper league tables for 2009. The Sunday Times also named Oxford University of the Year.
- In June 2009, the annual Times Good University Guide named Oxford Britain’s top university for the eighth year running.
- In May 2009, Oxford University topped The Guardian’s UK rankings for the fifth consecutive year.
- In April 2009, Oxford topped the national university league table, The Good University Guide, for the seventh time in the last eight years. The table is published in association with the Independent newspaper.
- In the Financlal Times Global Rankings (Jan 2010), the Saïd Business School's MBA programme was ranked 16th in the world and second in the UK. The Saïd Business School is also ranked in the top 20 European Business Schools (Dec 2009) and in the top 20 MBA programmes in the world (Jan 2009) by the Financial Times; the top 10 business schools outside the USA by Business Week (Nov 2009) and the top 15 accelerated MBA programmes worldwide by the Wall Street Journal (Sep 2009).
Oxford and Enterprise
- Isis Innovation Limited, the University’s wholly owned technology transfer company, has created more than 60 companies.
- Isis files, on average, one patent application each week and manages over 400 patent application families and 200 licence agreements.
- In the year to March 2009, Isis Innovation's trading turnover increased from £4.8 million to £5.8 million, four new spin-out companies were created and the number of new consultancy agreements almost doubled to 151.
- The collegiate University is the second largest employer in Oxfordshire. At a conservative estimate, over 18,000 jobs are supported directly or indirectly by the University, the Colleges, Oxford University Press and University spin-out companies.
- 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 University is a founder member of the Oxfordshire Economic Partnership, a network of public and private sector partners committed to building a world-class economy in Oxfordshire.
- In the Financlal Times Global Rankings (Jan 2010), the Saïd Business School's MBA programme was ranked 16th in the world and second in the UK. The Saïd Business School is also ranked in the top 20 European Business Schools (Dec 2009) and in the top 20 MBA programmes in the world (Jan 2009) by the Financial Times; the top 10 business schools outside the USA by Business Week (Nov 2009) and the top 15 accelerated MBA programmes worldwide by the Wall Street Journal (Sep 2009).
- Oxford Entrepreneurs has over 4,500 members and is the largest student society at Oxford University and the largest free business and entrepreneurship society in Europe.
- Oxford University Press, publisher of the famous dictionaries and a department of the University, is the largest university press in the world, with publishing operations in 16 countries, sales offices in 90 countries, and almost 5,000 employees worldwide.
Oxford Finance
- In 2008–9, total University income rose by 13 per cent to £862.5 million.
- The University’s largest source of income continues to be external research grants and contracts. In 2008-9 40 per cent (£340.5 million) of total income was derived from external research sponsors.
- Of the remaining income, 23 per cent came from grants from the Higher Education Funding Council for England and the Teaching and Development Agency; 14 per cent from academic fees; and 23 per cent from other sources including trading activities and investments.
- Research income has doubled in the last five years and grew by almost 20 per cent between 2008 and 2009 alone.
- Oxford consistently has the highest research income from external sponsors of any UK university.
- Total University expenditure in 2008–9 was £866.8 million.
- In May 2008 Oxford launched the biggest fund-raising campaign ever by a European university, aiming to raise at least £1.25 billion. £776 million of this total – well over half - has now been raised.
- In 2008-9, the turnover of Oxford University Press was £579 million.
- In 2007-8 the income of the colleges, as separate from the University, amounted to £267 million.
Museums, Collections and Libraries
- Oxford has the largest university library system in the UK, with over 100 libraries.
- Oxford University Library Services, which manages most of the main University libraries, holds over 9 million printed items, and vast quantities of materials in many other formats. Its collections grow by three miles of shelving a year.
- The Bodleian Library, the University’s main research library, is over 400 years old 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.
- The Bodleian Group of Libraries have 120 miles of occupied shelving, 29 reading rooms and 2,490 places for readers.
- Over 40 per cent of users of the Bodleian Library are people from outside the University.
- Over 1.1 million people visit the University’s six museums and collections every year, including over 78,000 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.
- Visit the Museums and Collections homepage for more information.
