The University of Essex is one of the Uk's
leading academic institutions.
Founded in 1964, the University has grown in both reputation and size, developing a worldwide reputation for top quality teaching and research particularly in the area of social sciences. Essex is the UK's most internationally diverse campus university, with students drawn from 142 countries and leading academic staff drawn from around the world.
Number one for social sciences
Our Faculty of Social Sciences is one of Europe's leading centres for theory-driven empirical research in the social sciences, renowned for its scholaray work, its teaching, its engagement with public debates and agendas, and it's extensive training and data resources.
It boasts an outstanding international research reputation that places the University of Essex as the top university for Social Sciences in the UK. That reputation has now been reinforced by the latest Research Assessment Exercise (RAE, 2008) which ranks the University’s work in Government (Political Science) and Sociology first in the UK in those fields, with Economics in third place and Language and Linguistics fourth in their fields.
As a result, you can be sure of studying in departments with world-wide reputations, and teaching informed by leading world-class researchers. This allows our departments and centres to offer a range of thriving undergraduate and postgraduate taught and research programmes as well as short courses, seminar programmes and summer schools.
Understanding our changing world.
Study social science at the University of Essex.
Our Reputation
Essex is ranked in the top ten in the UK for both the quality of its research (RAE) and its teaching (TQA) with many of its departments involved in world leading research.
It is particularly strong in the area of social sciences and as such enjoys a worldwide reputation for both the research it undertakes and the degrees it offers in this area. With a student population of just over 10,000 (25% of which are in the Graduate School) the University is able to provide a genuine sense of community and is known for being friendly as well as challenging.
Location
All of our campuses are less than one hour from central London. The University’s largest campus is based in beautiful parkland at Colchester and Essex has further state-of-the-art campuses in coastal Southend-on-Sea and Loughton.
Road and rail provide access to London and across the UK while London’s major international airports are within easy reach. The local airport, London Stansted, is less than 1 hour away and gives access via low-cost flights to over 100 destinations in Europe and beyond.
