The University of Birmingham (also known as Birmingham University) is a public research university in Edgbaston, Birmingham, United Kingdom, with a campus in the city centre. Queen's College, Birmingham (founded in 1825 as the Birmingham School of Medicine and Surgery) and Mason Science College (founded in 1875 by Sir Josiah Mason) were the first English civic or'red brick' universities to receive their own royal charter in 1900, making it the first English civic or'red brick' university to do so. It is a founding member of both the Russell Group of British research institutions and the worldwide network of research universities, Universitas 21, which were both established in the early 1990s and are still active today.
The university has a total student population of 23,155 undergraduates and 12,605 postgraduates, making it the seventh biggest in the United Kingdom (out of 169). Annual revenue for the university in 2019–20 was £737.3 million, of which 140.4 million came from research grants and contracts. Annual expenditure was £667.4 million, resulting in a net income of £737.3 million.
The Barber Institute of Fine Arts, which houses works by Van Gogh, Picasso, and Monet, as well as the Shakespeare Institute, the Cadbury Research Library, which houses the Mingana Collection of Middle Eastern manuscripts, the Lapworth Museum of Geology, and the 100-metre Joseph Chamberlain Memorial Clock Tower, which is a prominent landmark visible from many parts of the city, are all located on the campus. Faculty and graduates of the institution include former British Prime Ministers Neville Chamberlain and Stanley Baldwin, British musician Sir Edward Elgar, and eleven Nobel Prize winners, among other notable figures.