Brunel University of London

Brunel University of London (BUL) is a public research university located in the Uxbridge area of London, England. It is named after Isambard Kingdom Brunel, a Victorian engineer and pioneer of the Industrial Revolution. It became a university in June 1966, when Brunel College of Advanced Technology was awarded a royal charter and became Brunel University; it is sometimes considered a plate glass university.

In 2014 the university formally adopted the name Brunel University London, and in 2024 became the University of London's 17th member, adopting the trading name Brunel University of London. Since 2014 the university has been organised into three colleges: the College of Business, Arts and Social Sciences; the College of Engineering, Design and Physical Sciences; and the College of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences.

Brunel has over 16,000 students and 2,200 staff, and an annual income of £271.3 million (2021–22), of which £22.4 million was from research grants and contracts, with an expenditure of £311.9 million. The university won the Queen's Anniversary Prize in 2011. BUL is a member of the Association of Commonwealth Universities, the European University Association, and Universities UK.

Brunel University of London is one of several British universities that were founded in the 1960s in response to the Robbins Report on expanding higher education. It is sometimes described as a "plate glass university". The university's origins lie in Acton Technical College (now part of West London College), established in 1928, which split off its advanced teaching in 1956. In 1957, this new institution was named Brunel College, after the British engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel.

In 1962 Brunel College of Technology was awarded the status of College of Advanced Technology, and it was decided that a new campus should be built for the college. Uxbridge was chosen to house the new buildings and construction began in 1965. The campus buildings, including the lecture centre, were designed in the brutalist style of architecture by Richard Sheppard, Robson & Partners, Architects.

The Uxbridge (Vine Street) railway branch line was closed in 1964, and the college purchased the land adjacent to its site where the railway had run for £65,000 from the local council.

A royal charter granting university status and the power to award degrees was awarded on 9 June 1966, and the institution became Brunel University.

The university continued to use both campuses until 1971, when it left the Acton site. In 1980, the university merged with Shoreditch College of Education (Shoreditch Training College), located at Cooper's Hill, Runnymede, which became Brunel's second campus.