Abstract
The University of Birmingham (UoB) is oldest of the three universities in the city of Birmingham in the West Midlands of England. It was founded in 1900 to succeed Mason Science College and is thus the first of the "Redbrick" universities. It is an institution of important research with 18 000 students of first cycle and 11 000 students with the higher cycles. It also forms a part of Universitas 21 and is a founding member of the global network based on research. UoB is rated as one of the top five British research institutions and is ranked 11th overall in the UK, and the 30th in Europe. In 2007, UoB was ranked 7th in the UK according to a national league table published by The Guardian, and was ahead of all the other Midlands universities. Meanwhile, the Times Higher Education Supplement placed Birmingham in the 65th place in its latest table of world university rankings.
