University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign community of students, scholars, and alumni is changing the world. With our land-grant heritage as a foundation, we pioneer innovative research that tackles global problems and expands the human experience. In and out of the classroom, our transformative learning experiences are designed to produce alumni who desire to make a significant societal impact.
The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is charged by our state to enhance citizens' lives in Illinois, across the nation, and around the world through our leadership in learning, discovery, engagement, and economic development.
We will be the pre-eminent* public research university with a land-grant mission and global impact. Since its founding in 1867, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has earned a reputation as a world-class leader in research, teaching, and public engagement.
A talented and highly respected faculty is the University'sUniversity's most significant resource. Many are recognized for an exceptional scholarship with memberships in such organizations as the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences, and the National Academy of Engineering. Our faculty have been awarded Nobel Prizes, Pulitzer Prizes, and the Fields Medal in Mathematics. That of our alumni matches our faculty's success: 11 are Nobel Laureates, and another 18 have won Pulitzer Prizes.
Academic resources on campus are among the finest in the world. The University Library is one of the largest public university collections globally, with 13 million volumes in its 37 unit libraries. Annually, 53,000,000 people visit their online catalog. Students have access to thousands of computer terminals in classrooms, residence halls, and campus libraries for classroom instruction, study, and research.
Our focus on research shapes our identity at Illinois, permeates our classrooms, and fuels our outreach. Fostering discovery and innovation is our fundamental mission. As a public, land-grant university, we are responsible for creating new knowledge and new ideas and translating these into better ways of working, living, and learning for our state, nation, and world.
Entrepreneurship flows from the classrooms to Research Park, a space that houses everything from Fortune 500 companies to student-founded startups. We are consistently ranked among the top five universities for NSF-funded research, and our total annual research funding exceeds $600 million.
An important center for the arts, the campus attracts dozens of nationally and internationally renowned artists each year to its widely acclaimed Krannert Center for the Performing Arts. The UniversityUniversity also supports two major museums: the Krannert Art Museum and Kinkead Pavilion and the Spurlock Museum, a museum of world history and culture.
Other major facilities include the multipurpose State Farm Center (16,500 seats), Memorial Stadium (70,000 seats), site of Big Ten Conference football games, and the Activities and Recreation Center (ARC), one of the most extensive recreational facilities of its kind on a university campus.
The fundamental promise at Illinois for nearly 150 years has been to provide our undergraduate students with truly transformative educational experiences. Whether these experiences occur in the classroom, in the surrounding community, or around the globe, our students leave this campus with the skills, knowledge, and drive to become leaders in their fields and lead lives of impact in the world. Each year we welcome more than 32,000 undergraduate students across our nine undergraduate divisions – offering nearly 5,000 courses in more than 150 fields of study and awarding about 7,000 new degrees each spring.
Learn to dance from a Broadway veteran, hone your writing skills with a Pulitzer Prize winner, learn about engineering from a MacArthur genius, or learn physics from a Nobel Prize winner. Illinois can help make your dreams a reality. We have 16 colleges and instructional units that provide more than 150 undergraduate programs and more than 100 graduate and professional programs.
At Illinois, our research drives life-changing innovations, permeates our classrooms, and fuels our outreach. Illinois research fuels new ideas, new companies, and even new industries. We are among the nation's research powerhouses – for the last six years running, we have been awarded more NSF funding than any other university. Our faculty have developed many of the technologies that enable modern electronic devices, pioneered agricultural practices that feed the world, and shaped the government policies that protect the vulnerable in our society.
Illinois has more than 500 active institutional partnerships representing more than 50 countries. Last year, we had more than 10,000 international students attend Illinois, hailing from more than 110 countries. And, more than 2,000 students study abroad annually.
The University of Illinois is a public research university, ultimately responsible for Illinois and the Illinois General Assembly citizens. A board of trustees holds authority over the UniversityUniversity. A president is the chief executive officer for the university system. Each of three campuses is headed by a chancellor, vice-chancellors with campuswide responsibilities, and other administrators whose duties are delegated by the chancellor.