90 years of excellence
The University of Reading celebrated the 90th anniversary of its Royal Charter in 2016. The focus of the celebrations took place on Thursday 17 March 2016, which marked 90 years since the Royal Charter was granted on the same date in 1926.
Over the decades we have become innovators and pioneers, pushing academic boundaries and leading social change.
The arms of the University of Reading were granted on 7 August 1896 when the newly incorporated University Extension College at Reading was still part of Oxford University. This was thirty years before it was granted a Royal charter and became a university in its own right.
The University of Reading is among the top 30 UK universities in world rankings (ranked 26th out of 107 UK universities featured in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2025) and is home to 23,000 students from over 160 countries.
We offer a wide range of programmes from the pure and applied sciences to languages, humanities, social sciences, business and arts. New research and the latest thinking continually feed into our teaching, with our academic staff working at the forefront of their fields of expertise, and we remain one of the most popular higher education choices in the UK.
In 1972, Reading was the first British university to integrate an industrial Research and Development Group on its campus.
Reading is now one of the foremost research-led universities in the UK.
The University features more than 50 research centres, many of which are recognised as international centres of excellence in areas including agriculture, biological and physical sciences, European histories and cultures, and meteorology.
The University is now a five-time winner of the Queen’s Anniversary Prize for Higher Education, winning in 1998, 2006, 2009, 2012 and 2021.
In 1989 the University of Reading became the first university to win the Queen’s Award for Export Achievement.
