The University of Edinburgh, founded in 1583, is a public research university in Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland.
The university is deeply embedded in the fabric of the city, with many of the buildings in the historic Old Town belonging to the university. Edinburgh receives approximately 47,000 applications every year, making it the third most popular university in the UK by volume of applicants. Entrance is intensely competitive, with 12 applications per place in the last admissions cycle. It was the fourth university to be established in Scotland and the 6th in the United Kingdom, and is one of the most prestigious universities in the world.
The University of Edinburgh is ranked 6th and 7th in Europe according to the 2011 QS and Times Higher Education Ranking and 21st in the world by the 2012 QS rankings. It is a member of both the Russell Group, and the League of European Research Universities, a consortium of 21 research universities in Europe. In addition, the university has both historical links and current partnerships with academic institutions in the United States and Canada, including members of the Ivy League and U15. It has the third largest endowment of any university in the UK.
The university played an important role in leading Edinburgh to its reputation as a chief intellectual centre during the Age of Enlightenment, and helped give the city the nickname of the Athens of the north. Graduates of the university include some of the major figures of modern history, including the naturalist Charles Darwin, physicist James Clerk Maxwell, philosopher David Hume, mathematician Thomas Bayes, former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Deputy President of the British Supreme Court Lord Hope, surgeon and pioneer of sterilisation Joseph Lister, signatories of the American declaration of independence John Witherspoon and Benjamin Rush, inventor Alexander Graham Bell, first president of Tanzania Julius Nyerere, and a host of famous authors such as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert Louis Stevenson, J.M. Barrie and Sir Walter Scott. The university is also associated with 15 Nobel Prize winners, 1 Abel Prize winner, several Turing Award winners, 2 currently sitting British Supreme Court Justices and several Olympic gold medallists. It also continues to have links to the British Royal Family, with the Duke of Edinburgh being chancellor from 1953 to 2010, and Anne, Princess Royal from 2011.