Victoria University is one of New Zealand's oldest and most prestigious tertiary institutions with a proud tradition of academic excellence. Learn more about our 115 years of rich history.
Our connections and influence—both here and overseas—are strengthened by this capital city status, providing opportunities for staff and students internationally, and helping us make New Zealand's perspective to the world.
Through excellent teaching, research, scholarship, public service, and entrepreneurship, we are committed to shaping New Zealand's national identity and to fostering a better world. We are here to lead thinking on the critical questions confronting New Zealanders.
Central to our mission is the cultivation of creative capital—the capacity of individuals and communities to imagine—to express new possibilities through creative activity. This is the genius behind art, music, and writing. It is also the curiosity and insight that finds new solutions to complex social and environmental issues. It is the entrepreneurship that establishes new businesses. It is leadership, innovation, and inspiration.
The quality of a university's staff and students determines its success. At Victoria, our teachers are committed to developing their students' knowledge, competencies, and personal attributes, with an eye to their future. For students, the quality and the relevance of your experience at Victoria and the career opportunities that result will be second to none.
Victoria's areas of academic distinctiveness address local, national and global challenges, with a focus on Wellington, New Zealand, and the Asia-Pacific.
Victoria's eight, distinctive, multidisciplinary themes span the University and reflect Victoria's position as New Zealand's globally ranked capital city university. They encompass areas where Victoria and Wellington have overlapping strengths and where Victoria can most effectively contribute to local, national, and global challenges.
As a global-civic university, Victoria is committed to ensuring that our local communities benefit from our internationally respected academic excellence. We place a strong emphasis on ensuring that our research informs policy and leads thinking on major societal and environmental issues.
Victoria is 'Advancing better government' through critical thinking and strong relationships with the public sector, business, and the diplomatic community. Victoria fosters and celebrates the capacity to imagine and express new possibilities through 'Cultivating creative capital.' Economically, politically and culturally, New Zealand's regional ties are strengthening, with Victoria, a leader in 'Enabling our Asia-Pacific trading nation.' Multidisciplinary Victoria's expertise makes an invaluable contribution to 'Enhancing the resilience and sustainability of our natural heritage and capital.'
Victoria is the country's leading institution for vigorous research supporting 'Enriching national culture' and puts it at the center of the debate. A broad, holistic approach, including mental and social wellbeing, underpins Victoria's many contributions to 'Improving health and wellbeing in our communities.' Victoria is 'Spearheading our digital futures' by exploring and finding solutions to the opportunities and challenges of the digital age. By enabling the next generation of innovators to imagine without limits, Victoria is 'Stimulating a design-led, high-value manufacturing region.'
Harnessing the advantages capital city universities gain through their privileged access to leaders, influencers, and decision-makers.
More than most of their peers in other locations, the scholars and leaders of capital city universities interact regularly with politicians, officials, and cultural leaders.
As a result of this privileged access, they are in a dominant position to understand and influence state decision making.
The Capital City Universities Initiative brings together scholars from prestigious universities in selected national capitals to explore the opportunities they share through their institutions' proximity to public sectors.
Working with each other and with influential capital city stakeholders, their universities can shape scholarly, state, and civil society thinking on the pressing social, economic, and environmental issues of our time.
The Initiative provides a forum for leading capital city universities to share the experiences and insights through their engagement with the public sector.
The University, formerly known as Victoria College, was founded in 1897. This was the year of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee celebrations.
Victoria University is characterized by the depth, consistency, and effectiveness of our culture of domestic and international engagement. Our commitment to reciprocal, high-quality relationships springs from identifying and understanding the need for New Zealand to achieve sustainable development.
Victoria has developed close ties with a wide range of businesses and government organizations, and several recent initiatives are aimed at improving the University's engagement with industry.
Substantial contributions to significant government projects have fully demonstrated Victoria's historic strength in public policy, and entrepreneurship education is an emerging strength on which we intend to build. Victoria also gives high priority to engagement with Māori and Pacific communities.
We aim to produce graduates whose learning has been developed inside and outside of the classroom, experientially, and informed by a global perspective.
Victoria University is one of New Zealand's oldest and most prestigious tertiary institutions with a proud tradition of academic excellence. Discover more about Victoria University's 115 years of rich history.
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