University College London University College London UCL (legally University College London) is a public research university in London, England, and a constituent college of the federal University of London. It is the largest university in the United Kingdom by total enrolment, and the largest by postgraduate enrolment. Established in 1826 as London University by founders inspired by the radical ideas of Jeremy Bentham, UCL was the first university institution to be established in London, and the first in England to be entirely secular and to admit students regardless of their religion. UCL also makes the contested claims of being the third-oldest university in
University College London Association of Commonwealth Universities, the European University Association and the Universities Research Association. UCL has a major collaboration with Yale University, the Yale UCL Collaborative, and has hundreds of other research and teaching partnerships, including around 150 research links and 130 student-exchange partnerships with European universities. UCL has been a member of the SES engineering and physical sciences research alliance since May 2013, which it formed with the universities of Cambridge, Oxford and Southampton and Imperial College London (King's College London subsequently joined in 2016). UCL is a member of the Thomas Young Centre, an alliance of London research groups