University of Glasgow

Pope Nicholas V issued the founding papal bull on January 7, 1451. Although the bull states that it was granted at the request of King James II, the university regards William Turnbull, Bishop of Glasgow from 1447 to 1454, as its real founder. The university still awards degrees under the authority the bull conferred.⁠[1]

In early arts teaching the MA took five years and the BA three. Students were grouped by birthplace into four nations, and voting by nation for the Rector continued until 1977; in 1727 three of the nations were renamed Glottiana, Loudonina and Transforthiana.⁠[1]

Andrew Melville (1545–1622) became Principal in 1574. In 1577 a new charter from James VI, the Nova Erectio, gave the university an endowment and set out its governance for almost 300 years. The regenting system returned in 1642 and lasted until 1727.⁠[1]

Construction of new buildings on the High Street began in 1631 and continued through the civil war; Oliver Cromwell honoured a £200 donation that Charles I had promised. The buildings were nearly complete at the Restoration of 1660.⁠[1]

Student numbers grew from about 150 in 1660 to 400 by 1702, and seven professorships were created or restored over the following 30 years. Medicine, attempted from 1637 to 1646, was revived in 1714, and law became a recognised faculty for the first time since the Reformation. In 1717 the professors removed students’ right to vote for the Rector, which was restored in 1726.⁠[1]

Adam Smith enrolled in 1737 at the age of 14, and in 1776 he published The Wealth of Nations.⁠[2][3]

In 1837 James McCune Smith became the first African American to be awarded a medical degree, at Glasgow. In 1840 the university became the first in the UK to appoint a Professor of Engineering.⁠[3][2]

In 1848 Lord Kelvin proposed an absolute temperature scale. In 1881 William Thomson, later Lord Kelvin, helped create on the campus one of the first houses in the world to be lit entirely by electricity.⁠[3][2]

Under the Act of Uniformity professors and graduates had to sign the Westminster Confession; graduation tests seem to have been abandoned by the end of the 18th century and professorial tests were abolished in 1853. An 1858 Act of Parliament abolished the Faculty and created the University Court and the General Council, made matriculation compulsory and ended the distinction between togati and non-togati students.⁠[1]

By the 1840s the High Street buildings were inadequate, and a move to Woodlands Hill attempted in the late 1840s was abandoned. The university moved to Gilmorehill in 1870, with the Western Infirmary built nearby.⁠[1]

The Universities (Scotland) Act of 1889 made professors fully salaried and gave formal recognition to the Students’ Representative Council. In 1892 Scottish universities began admitting women, and Queen Margaret College, Scotland’s only higher education college for women, merged with the university. The Science Faculty was established in 1893.⁠[1][2]

In 1894 Marion Gilchrist became the first woman in Scotland to graduate in medicine.⁠[3]

In 1896 John Macintyre opened the world’s first X-ray department.⁠[3]

In 1913 Frederick Soddy, later a Nobel prizewinner, discovered isotopes. The television pioneer John Logie Baird began his studies at the university in 1914 and invented television in 1926.⁠[3][2]

Engineering became a separate faculty in 1923. In 1947 the Faculty of Medicine absorbed St Mungo’s College, Anderson’s College of Medicine and the Glasgow Dental School, and Glasgow Veterinary College joined the university in 1948.⁠[1]

In 1949 graduate John Boyd Orr received the Nobel Peace Prize for his research on nutrition and his work at the United Nations.⁠[2]

In 1957 the university became the first in Scotland to have an electronic computer. In 1958 Professor Ian Donald published the world’s first ultrasound images of a fetus.⁠[2]

The Universities (Scotland) Act of 1966 gave universities greater autonomy over course content and design. The same year the former Glasgow Veterinary College became the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine.⁠[1]

In 1967 Jocelyn Bell Burnell discovered radio pulsars. In 1974 Graham Teasdale and Bryan Jennett created the Glasgow Coma Scale.⁠[3]

The university was one of the 17 original members of the Russell Group, which was established in 1994.⁠[4][5]

In 1995 the West of Scotland Coronary Prevention Study, led by Professor James Shepherd, found that statins reduce the risk of heart attack.⁠[2]

St Andrew’s College of Education merged with the university in 1999, creating the Faculty of Education.⁠[1]

In 2003 graduate Emma Richards became the first British woman to sail solo around the world. In 2004 Edwin Morgan became Scotland’s first National Poet.⁠[2][3]

In 2010 the university replaced its nine faculties with four Colleges. The same year it became the first university in the UK to offer intellectual property to businesses free of charge, through its Easy Access IP initiative.⁠[1][2]

In 2015 Sheila Rowan led the Glasgow team that first detected gravitational waves.⁠[3]

On March 9, 2020, the university announced that Katherine Grainger, the sole nominee, would become Chancellor in June 2020, succeeding Kenneth Calman, who had held the post since 2006, and becoming the university’s first woman Chancellor. Born in Glasgow, she holds an MPhil from Glasgow, an LLB from the University of EdinburghUniversity of EdinburghThe University of Edinburgh is a research university in Edinburgh, Scotland. Founded by the Town Council in 1583, it is one of Scotland’s four ancient universities and a member of the Russell Group.Open the full entry and a PhD from King’s College LondonKing's College LondonKing’s College London is a research university in London, United Kingdom. Founded in 1829, it is a member of the Russell Group.Open the full entry; she won one gold and four silver medals across five Olympic Games and was appointed Chair of UK Sport in 2017.⁠[6]

The £90 million James McCune Smith Learning Hub opened to students for the first time in April 2021; when fully operational it provides learning facilities for more than 2,500 students.⁠[7]

In 2021 David MacMillan received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.⁠[3]

The £118 million Mazumdar-Shaw Advanced Research Centre (ARC) was officially opened on June 8, 2022, by Professor Sir David MacMillan. Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw and John Shaw, a Glasgow graduate, gave $7.5 million towards its construction and to fund a professorial chair.⁠[8]

On September 12, 2023, the university officially opened the Clarice Pears Building beside Byres Road on the Gilmorehill campus as the new home of the School of Health & Wellbeing, bringing together academics who had worked across ten locations. The Pears Foundation donated £5 million towards construction, and the building is named after Clarice Pears, mother of the foundation’s three founders.⁠[9]

In December 2023 the £85 million Adam Smith Business School building and Postgraduate Taught Hub was formally opened by Professor Cecilia Rouse; the university planned to name it the Adam Smith Building at the end of that academic year.⁠[10]

Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah was elected Rector in March 2024; his term on the University Court runs from April 1, 2024, to March 30, 2027.⁠[11]

Anton Muscatelli announced in April 2024 that he would step down in 2025. On September 26, 2024, the university named Professor Andy Schofield as its 51st Principal and Vice-Chancellor; he had been Vice-Chancellor of Lancaster University since May 2020 and was earlier Pro-Vice-Chancellor and Head of the College of Engineering at the University of BirminghamUniversity of BirminghamThe University of Birmingham is a research university in Birmingham, England. It grew out of Mason Science College, founded by Josiah Mason in 1875, received its Royal Charter from Queen Victoria in 1900 and is a member of the Russell Group.Open the full entry.⁠[12]

Muscatelli retired on September 30, 2025, after 16 years as Principal, and Schofield took office on October 1, 2025.⁠[13]

In the 2024–25 financial year ended July 31, 2025, the university’s total income was £1,049.6 million (£958.6 million the previous year), including £241.1 million from research grants and contracts, up 8.9%; its underlying surplus excluding USS pension movements was £62.4 million. It had 35,614 undergraduate and postgraduate students and 7,913 full-time-equivalent staff that year.⁠[13]

The university was ranked 84th in the Times Higher EducationTimes Higher EducationTimes Higher Education (THE) is a London-based higher education news and data company. It grew out of the Times Higher Education Supplement, launched in 1971, and is best known for its World University Rankings, founded in 2004; it has been owned by the private equity firm Inflexion since 2019.Open the full entry World University Rankings 2026 and 79th in the QS World University Rankings 2026. Construction of the Keystone Building, designed to accommodate more than 3,600 students, began during the year, with completion expected in 2028.⁠[13]

The university is a founding member of Universitas 21 and The Guild of European Research Intensive Universities, takes part in the European University Alliance through CIVIS, and has transnational education partnerships with the Singapore Institute of Technology, Nankai University and the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China.⁠[3]

The university states that eight Nobel laureates are connected with it, and its graduates include two UK Prime Ministers and three First Ministers of Scotland.⁠[3][14]

The university describes itself as the first European university to declare that it would divest from fossil fuels by 2024 and the first in Scotland to declare a climate emergency, and it holds University of Sanctuary status.⁠[3]

University of Glasgow: Official website: https://www.gla.ac.uk/ (opens in a new window).⁠[15]

LinkedInLinkedInLinkedIn is a social networking platform for professionals. It was founded in 2002 by Reid Hoffman and others, launched in 2003, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2011; after Microsoft acquired it for approximately $26.2 billion in 2016, it became a wholly owned Microsoft subsidiary. Its revenue comes from membership subscriptions, advertising, and recruitment solutions.Open the full entry: Public profile: https://www.linkedin.com/school/university-of-glasgow/ (opens in a new window).⁠[15]

YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is Google’s video-sharing and creator platform, founded in 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim and acquired by Google in 2006. Built around video uploading, viewing, and creator earnings, the platform has developed Shorts, YouTube Music, Premium, YouTube TV, and products for children, and is headquartered in San Bruno, California, United States.Open the full entry: Public channel: https://www.youtube.com/uofglasgow (opens in a new window).⁠[15]