The University of York was founded in 1963 with 200 students. Since then, it has expanded to 11,000 students and has over 30 academic departments and research centres. The University has a collegiate system in which most staff and all students are members of colleges.
From its inception, the University has concentrated on strong viable departments and teaching and research of the highest quality. The quality of York's teaching has received many accolades. York and Cambridge top the teaching league with the highest scores in official teaching assessments.
York was rated 8th out of 159 Higher Education institutions in the last Research Assessment Exercise, carried out by the Higher Educations Funding Council for England in 2008.
