University of California

The
University of California, Berkeley (also referred to as Berkeley, UC Berkeley, California or simply Cal) is a public research university located in Berkeley, California. It is the flagship campus of the University of California system, one of three parts in the state's public higher education plan, which also includes the California State University system and the California Community Colleges System.

It is considered by the Times Higher Education World University Rankings as one of six university brands that lead in world reputation rankings in 2016 and is ranked third on the U.S. News' 2015 Best Global Universities rankings conducted in the U.S. and nearly 50 other countries. The Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) also ranks the University of California, Berkeley fourth in the world overall, and first among public universities. It is broadly ranked first in science, third in engineering, and fifth in social sciences, with specific rankings of first in chemistry, first in physics, third in computer science, fourth in mathematics, and fourth in economics/business. The university is also well known for producing a high number of entrepreneurs.

Established in 1868 as the result of the merger of the private College of California and the public Agricultural, Mining, and Mechanical Arts College in Oakland, UC Berkeley is the oldest institution in the UC system and offers approximately 350 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in a wide range of disciplines. The University of California has been charged with providing both "classical" and "practical" education for the state's people.Cal co-manages three United States Department of Energy National Laboratories, including the Los Alamos National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory for the U.S. Department of Energy.

Berkeley faculty, alumni, and researchers have won 72 Nobel Prizes (including 30 alumni Nobel laureates), 9 Wolf Prizes, 13 Fields Medals (including 3 alumni medalists), 22 Turing Awards, 45 MacArthur Fellowships,20 Academy Awards, 14 Pulitzer Prizes and 105 Olympic gold medals (47 silver and 33 bronze). To date, along with Berkeley Lab, UC Berkeley scientists and researchers have discovered 16 chemical elements of the periodic table (californium, seaborgium, berkelium, einsteinium, fermium, lawrencium, etc.) – more than any other university in the world. Lawrence Livermore Lab also discovered or co-discovered six chemical elements (113 to 118).Berkeley is a founding member of the Association of American Universities and continues to have very high research activity with $730.7 million in research and development expenditures in the fiscal year ending June 30, 2014.