Today, a combination of distinctive character, academic vision and membership of the University of London has established Royal Holloway among the top research-led university institutions in the country. Royal Holloway is renowned for having a friendly environment - home for a vibrant community of 5,500 undergraduate and postgraduate students of all ages and backgrounds and from more than 90 countries. Our spacious campus provides an impressive range of modern academic and social facilities in a parkland setting in Surrey, close to London and the UK's major communications network. Research Royal Holloway has earned a world-class reputation for developing original research. Our students join a community in which academic staff are working at the frontiers of their subjects, and degree courses, interdisciplinary programmes and specialist research centres reflect current thinking and the latest developments.
Research is enhanced by successful relationships and collaborations with industry and commerce.
Royal Holloway continues to play an important role in the economic and cultural profile of the South East region. Brief History Royal Holloway College was founded by the Victorian entrepreneur, Thomas Holloway as a college for the higher education of bright young women. Almost 100 years later, Royal Holloway merged with Bedford College, another pioneering institution founded in 1849 by Elizabeth Jesser Reid. The colleges became part of the University of London before the turn of the century, when the University first awarded degrees to women, and both began to admit male undergraduates from 1965. The relocation of Bedford to the Royal Holloway campus in 1985 has built on the strengths of both to create a first-class academic environment for generations to come.