Adelaide University () is a public research university based in Adelaide, Australia. Founded in 2024 and officially opened on 29 January 2026, it merged the University of Adelaide, the third-oldest university in Australia, and the University of South Australia (UniSA), which had an antecedent history dating back to 1856. Its two main campuses are located in the Adelaide city centre, one, City West, adjacent to the Adelaide BioMed City and near the Royal Adelaide Hospital, and the other, City East, located at the east end of North Terrace, near the Lot Fourteen tech precincts and containing the original University of Adelaide campus, with additional campuses located across its home state of South Australia.
The two antecedent universities' histories date back to the former Royal South Australian Society of Arts. The University of Adelaide was founded in 1874 by the Union College, with studies initially conducted at the Public Library of South Australia (now the State Library). The society was also the birthplace of the South Australian Institute of Technology (SAIT) founded in 1889 as the School of Mines and Industries. SAIT later became the University of South Australia during the Dawkins Revolution following a merger with amalgamated colleges dating back to the School of Art, also founded at the society. After a failed attempt to agree to a merger in 2018, the two universities agreed to merge in mid-2023. The combined Adelaide University was incorporated the following year and opened after two years of concurrent operations.
The university has seven campuses, including the combined flagship Adelaide city centre campus in North Terrace; a STEM-oriented campus in Mawson Lakes; the Magill campus specialising in social sciences; the Waite campus in Urrbrae; and regional campuses in Roseworthy, Mount Gambier, and Whyalla. Its academic activities are organised into six constituent colleges which are subdivided into 29 academic schools. It also manages several museums and exhibits, including the Samstag Museum and Adelaide Planetarium. It is a member of the Group of Eight, an association of research-intensive universities in Australia, and is co-located with the Australian Space Agency and various defence technology companies.
Alumni of the two antecedent universities include the first female prime minister of Australia, Julia Gillard; two presidents of Singapore; the first astronaut born in Australia, Andy Thomas; and the first demonstrator of nuclear fusion, Mark Oliphant. The two universities have also produced a combined 117 Rhodes scholars and 173 Fulbright scholars, and are associated with five Nobel laureates.
History University of Adelaide
The history of the University of Adelaide dates back to the Union College established in 1872 to provide education to aspiring Protestant ministers who were previously required to travel to the United Kingdom. The college approached Scottish-born pastoralist Walter Watson Hughes with the proposal for a South Australian university with a request for endowment towards its creation. Following an agreement, a university association was established by the Union College on 23 September 1872 to manage the creation of the university.The University of Adelaide, which is named after its founding city namesake to Queen Adelaide, was formally established on 6 November 1874 following the passage of its founding legislation through the South Australian parliament. The parliament also provided a 2 hectare (5 acre) land grant for a campus. Its early benefactors, many of whom Scottish immigrants, made large donations to develop the university. The university has produced some of the Australia's earliest businesspeople, lawyers, medical professionals and politicians. It was founded with the backing of its first benefactor Walter Hughes and Thomas Elder, also a Scottish-born pastoralist and another founder of the university, who each donated £20,000 towards the association. The university initially occupied the South Australian Institute Building prior to the construction of the University Building which housed the entire campus at the time. Elder also bequeathed an additional £65,000 in his will following his death in 1897 of which £20,000 were allocated to set up the Elder Conservatorium of Music. Other donors include William Mitchell and Robert Barr Smith, also from Scotland and early leaders of the university.
The institution was the third of its kind on the Australian continent after the Universities of Sydney and Melbourne, which then educated solely men. The university, which allowed women to study alongside men since its commencement soon became the second university in the English-speaking world following the University of London in 1878 to formally admit women on equal terms as men in 1881. This was following a royal charter granted by Queen Victoria that year, which allowed for women to be conferred degrees. This has contributed to a number of firsts in the history of women's education in Australia.
Notable women include its first female graduate Edith Emily Dornwell who concurrently became the first person in Australia to receive the degree of Bachelor of Science in 1885. The university also graduated Australia's first female surgeon Laura Margaret Fowler in 1891. Ruby Claudia Davy was the first Australian woman to receive a doctorate in music in 1918. Other notable firsts also include Winifred Kiek, Margaret Reid and Janine Haines. In 1914, the university was also the first to elect a woman, Helen Mayo, to a university council in Australia. It is also the alma mater of Roma Mitchell who was Australia's first female judge, the first woman to be a Queen's Counsel, a chancellor of an Australian university and the governor of an Australian state. Australia's first female prime minister Julia Gillard had also studied at the university and the first Aboriginal Rhodes Scholar Rebecca Richards in 2010.
In 1991, it formally opened two additional campuses in Greater Adelaide outside of the city centre. These included the Waite and Roseworthy campuses, though the university operated at the Waite site since at least 1924 as the Waite Agricultural Research Institute. The Roseworthy campus was the former Roseworthy Agricultural College which, although affiliated with the university since 1905, was an independent institution prior to their merger. Additionally, the university previously operated research facilities across in Thebarton approximately north of the campus until 2020.
University of South Australia
The SA School of Art, the earliest antecedent institution of the University of South Australia, was established in 1856 at the former Royal South Australian Society of Arts. The independent art school, which went through many name changes, resided for most of its history at the Jubilee Exhibition Building which was later transferred to the University of Adelaide in 1929. It remained on the campus until 1962 when the building was demolished to make way for several university buildings.
The Jubilee Exhibition Building was also the birthplace of the South Australian Institute of Technology which was established in 1889 as the SA School of Mines and Industries. It moved to the neighbouring Brookman Building in 1903, named after the Scottish-born businessman George Brookman who contributed £15,000 towards its construction. The institute maintained strong ties with the neighbouring University of Adelaide that included the co-ordination of teaching, laboratories and examinations across fields of engineering and sciences. Despite the university later establishing its own faculty of engineering in 1937, the reciprocal relationship remained intertwined to the University Council and studies completed at the institute were recognised as equivalent studies eligible for credit towards university courses. The institute later expanded to the regional city of Whyalla in 1962 and to the Adelaide suburb of Mawson Lakes in 1972 as The Levels. In 1965, it was designated an advanced college which initiated an expansion in the variety of courses available.
The Adelaide Teachers College, which changed names and shifted locations multiple times throughout its existence, was established in 1876. Despite not being located at the University of Adelaide campus until 1900, students from the institution attended university lectures since at least 1878. In 1921, it renamed to the Adelaide Teachers College, in line with other interstate teachers colleges. Despite offers from the university to take control of the college, which was heavily integrated into the university, the Education Department retained administrative authority throughout its early history. The Hartley Building was built as its permanent home in 1927.
The college eventually renamed to the Adelaide College of the Arts and Education. It also established additional teachers colleges in other parts of the city including Magill. Following a series of mergers, the colleges expanded to become advanced colleges which all later amalgamated with the original mother college to become the South Australian College of Advanced Education in 1982. The combined institution continued its presence alongside the University of Adelaide with which it maintained joint teaching, facilities and committees. The campus merged with the university in 1991.
Stronger demand for advanced college places throughout the country resulted from a broadening appeal of higher education beyond the traditionally elite education provided by the universities. Advanced colleges were originally designed to complement universities, forming a binary system modelled on that of the United Kingdom. It was originally created by the Menzies government following World War II on the advice of a committee led by physicist Leslie H. Martin, during a period of high population growth and corresponding demand for secondary and tertiary education. This sector ceased to exist when, between 1989 and 1992, the Hawke-Keating government implemented the sweeping reforms of Education Minister John Dawkins that dismantled the binary system. The states, eager for increased education funding, merged the colleges either with existing universities or with each other to form new universities. Following its expansion and increasing autonomy from the university, the South Australian Institute of Technology was given the option to merge with either TAFE South Australia or the South Australian College of Advanced Education. It chose to merge with the latter advanced college resulting in the establishment of the University of South Australia, which continues to remain neighbours with the University of Adelaide.
The University of South Australia became the state's third public university, a continuation of the former South Australian Institute of Technology that merged with most of the SACAE, and maintained their historical presence next to the University of Adelaide, in the suburbs of Mawson Lakes and Magill and in the regional city of Whyalla. Its expansion over the next few decades, including to sites on the west end of North Terrace, and broadening fields of studies contributed to its status as the state's largest university by student population. It also became the second-largest university nationally by number of online students, either in the state or from other parts of the country, and expanded to Mount Gambier in 2005.
Merger progression