University College - Great Britain

Great Britain

In the United Kingdom, the term university college is used to denote an institution that teaches degree programmes normally within a specialist field, and may carry out research but is normally teaching-focused. Any institution may describe itself as a university college, but the use of the term "university" in a title requires government approval. To use the term in their titles, institutions must have degree-awarding powers, though some still choose to have their degrees awarded by other institutions. Many university colleges became universities in September 2005, with others seeking to gain the status within the following years. The UK's first private proprietary University College is BPP University College of Professional Studies.

Many well established British universities started out as university colleges, teaching external degrees of the University of London. Examples include the University of Nottingham (which was University College Nottingham when D. H. Lawrence attended), the University of Southampton which was a part of the University of London until 1952, and the University of Exeter, which until 1955 was the University College of the South West of England; Keele University was founded in 1949 as the University College of North Staffordshire until it was granted its royal charter in 1962 and transformed into a University. This was the recognised route for establishing new universities in the United Kingdom during the first half of the 20th century.

A related, but slightly different, use of the term existed in the federal University of Wales; some of its constituent colleges took titles such as "University College Aberystwyth". These colleges were to all intents and purposes independent universities (the University of Wales' powers being largely restricted to the formal awarding of degrees). In 1996, the University of Wales was reorganised to admit two former higher education institutions and the older members became "Constituent Institutions" rather than colleges, being renamed along the lines of University of Wales, Aberystwyth.

There are several specific British institutions named "University College", including, but not limited to:

• University College, Oxford is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford; founded in 1249, it claims to be the oldest Oxbridge college.
• University College London is the oldest of the constituent colleges of the federal University of London, and one of the largest institutions of higher education in the United Kingdom. Like the colleges within the University of Wales, it is to many intents and purposes an independent university but, in contrast, has made no moves towards altering its name, and shares substantial academic and support resources with other colleges of the University.
• University College, Durham is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Durham; founded in 1832, it is the foundation Durham college.
• Wolfson College, Cambridge was named University College from its foundation in 1965 until its endowment by the Wolfson Foundation in 1972.