The University of East Anglia (UEA) is a public research university in Norwich, England. Established in 1963 on a campus west of the city centre, the university has four faculties and twenty-six schools of study. It is one of five BBSRC funded research campuses, with forty businesses, four independent research institutes (the John Innes Centre, Quadram Institute, Earlham Institute and the Sainsbury Laboratory) and a teaching hospital (Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital) on site.
The university is a member of Norwich Research Park, which hosts one of Europe's largest communities of researchers in the fields of agriculture, genomics, health and the environment. UEA is also one of the nation's most-cited research institutions worldwide. The postgraduate Master of Arts in creative writing, founded by Malcolm Bradbury and Angus Wilson in 1971, has produced several successful authors. In 2024/25, UEA had a total income of £314.9 million, of which £38.4 million was from research grants and contracts, with an expenditure of £331.3 million. The university also generates £559 million annually for the regional economy, and has one of the highest percentages of 1st and 2:1 undergraduate degrees.
UEA's alumni, faculty and researchers, include three Nobel Prize laureates, a co-discoverer of the Hepatitis C and D genomes, as well as the small interfering RNA, a co-inventor of the Oxford–AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, one President of the Royal Society, and numerous Fellows of the British Academy, the Academy of Medical Sciences, and the Royal Society. Alumni also include one current monarch and former prime minister, two de facto heads of state, one vice president, one deputy prime minister, and two former Leaders of the House of Lords, along with winners of the Lasker Award, Caine Prize, and Booker Prize.
History
1960s Attempts to establish a university in Norwich were made in 1919 and 1947, but due to a lack of government funding on both occasions the plans had to be postponed. The University of East Anglia was eventually set up in April 1960 for biological sciences and English studies students. Initially, teaching took place in the temporary "University Village", which was officially opened by the chairman of the University Grants Committee, Keith Murray, on 29 September 1963. Sited on the opposite side of Earlham Road to the present campus, this was a collection of prefabricated structures designed for 1,200 students, laid out by the local architectural firm Feilden and Mawson. There were no residences with the vice-chancellor and administration being based in nearby Earlham Hall. UEA was one of the "plate glass universities" that were constructed during the decade to meet the demand for the expansion of higher education.
In 1961, the first vice-chancellor, Frank Thistlethwaite, had approached architect Denys Lasdun, an adherent of the "New Brutalist" trend in architecture, who was at that time building Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, to produce designs for the permanent campus. The site chosen was on the western edge of the city, on the south side of Earlham Road. The land, formerly part of the Earlham Hall estate was at that time occupied by a golf course. Lasdun presented a model and an outline plan at a press conference in April 1963, but it took another year to produce more detailed plans, which diverged considerably from the model. As a result, the first buildings did not open until late-1966.
Lasdun moved the teaching and research functions into a single long concrete block following the contour of the site. A walkway was built alongside the teaching wall, providing access to its various entrances, with frontage roads running below. Attached to the southern side of the walkway, six linked blocks of terraced accommodation residences were constructed to appear as one structure. The residences became known as the "Ziggurats" and were designed by Lasdun to recall "vineyards in France or a rocky outcrop on a slope". In 1968, Lasdun was replaced as consultant architect by Bernard Feilden, known for his conservation work on the Great Wall of China and the Taj Mahal. Feilden completed the university wall, the library, and created an arena-shaped square social space. They would later receive Grade II* listed status.
In 1963, the University of East Anglia Boat Club (UEABC) was founded; it currently has 60 members and rows year-round on the Yare River from September to July. The club has a boathouse and also has use of the UEA Sportspark on campus. In 1964, Arthur Miller's The Crucible became the first drama production to be staged at UEA with John Rhys Davies, the drama society's first president and one of the first 105 students admitted to the university. In 1965, composer Benjamin Britten was appointed music adviser for UEA and in 1967, he conducted the UEA Choir in a performance of his composition War Requiem.
1970s In the early-1970s, UEA:TV (under the name of Nexus UTV) was formed and created student-made television with it operating for two hours a day over lunchtime. The monthly student newspaper Concrete officially launched in 1973, replacing Mandate from 1965; issues have included interviews with Tony Blair, Nick Clegg, Paul McCartney, Coldplay, Stephen Fry, Michael Palin, Harrison Ford, Greg James, Charles Clarke and Max Mosley. Additional university publications included Phoenix, Can Opener, Mustard Magazine and Kett before Concrete re-launched in 1992.
Authors Malcolm Bradbury and Angus Wilson both founded the School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing and jointly helped to establish their creative writing course at masters level in 1970, which was then a groundbreaking initiative in the United Kingdom. In 1972, the Centre for Climatic Research opened in the School of Environmental Sciences; the founder and first director was climatologist Hubert Lamb. That same year, UEA's consultant architect Bernard Feilden helped the university to win a Civic Trust Award for the design of the main campus social area (The Square).
In the mid-1970s, the School of Computing Sciences first opened at UEA and the university started offering postgraduate and undergraduate education degrees from Keswick Hall, a manor and country house that previously served as a residence of the Gurney family and housed the former Norwich Teacher Training College. The property was sold off in 1981 after the college's amalgamation with the university due to an enforced closure.
The UEA Broad was developed by Atlas Aggregates in conjunction with the university between August 1973 and June 1978. The project involved excavating an area of gravel and was arranged as part of a "no money" deal where the aggregate company took the material leaving a landscaped body of water fed by the River Yare. It is one of the few Broads produced by gravel extraction rather than peat digging.
In 1978, the gift of tribal art and 20th-century paintings and sculptures by artists such as Francis Bacon and Henry Moore from Sir Robert Sainsbury resulted in the construction of the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, one of the first major public buildings to be designed by the architects Norman Foster and Wendy Cheesman. The building became Grade II* listed in December 2012.
1980s
In 1984, the UEA Law School first moved to Earlham Hall which dates back to 1580 and was the seat of the Gurney family. Social reformer Elizabeth Fry grew up there and Prince William Frederick was once a regular guest. In 1984, the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) moved to a new cylindrical building designed by Rick Mather. In 2006, this was named the Hubert Lamb Building in honour of the first director. In 1988, for the university's 25th-anniversary celebrations, Charles, Prince of Wales (now King Charles III) visited the CRU building. It has become one of the leading institutions worldwide concerned with the study of natural and anthropogenic climate change.
Also in 1988, ten years after the Sainsbury Centre opened, all of the cladding had to be replaced after the aluminium panels deteriorated beyond repair. In 1989, the British Centre for Literary Translation was founded in the School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing by W. G. Sebald, who taught European Literature. In 1987, the Arthur Miller Centre for American Studies was set up to facilitate the study of the United States. Miller spent his 85th-birthday at UEA when he was made an honorary graduate in 2000.
1990s In 1990, the student radio station Livewire1350AM launched, completing UEA's Media Collective of print, television and radio. It was opened by Radio 1 DJ John Peel (who was awarded an honorary MA degree from UEA) and is now one of the longest running student radio stations in the country. In 1993, the Union of UEA Students took over the management of the Waterfront, a music venue and nightclub located on the bank of the River Wensum which has hosted bands and artists including Pulp, Radiohead, Nirvana, The Verve, Arctic Monkeys, The Prodigy, Amy Winehouse, Stereophonics, Paul Weller, Buzzcocks, MGMT, Travis, Moby, Ellie Goulding and Foals. In 1994, Queen Elizabeth II opened the Queen's Building, which hosts classes within the School of Health Sciences. In 1995, the Elizabeth Fry Building was opened, providing new facilities for almost 800 students.
2000s In 2000, UEA's reputation within the field of environmental research led to the government choosing the university as the site for the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research. The centre, named after the 19th-century scientist John Tyndall, brings together scientists, economists, engineers and social scientists from eight partner institutions to "research, assess and communicate from a distinct trans-disciplinary perspective, the options to mitigate, and the necessities to adapt to current climate change and continuing global warming, and to integrate these into the global, UK and local contexts of sustainable development". In 2000, the Sportspark (containing an Olympic-sized pool, floodlit astro-pitches and the tallest climbing wall in Norfolk) was built due to funding from the Sport England Lottery Fund and has become one of the most successful national sport facilities.
In 2001, UEA alumnus Sir Paul Nurse was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine which he shared jointly with Timothy Hunt and Leland Hartwell "for their discoveries of key regulators of the cell cycle". In 2002, the Norwich Medical School opened as part of the School of Medicine, Health Policy and Practice with over 110 students enrolled as a collaboration with the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital and the research centres at Norwich Research Park. In 2003, the School of Pharmacy opened along with the Zuckerman Institute for Connective Environmental Research (ZICER).