Oxford: British and International

Oxford University has been at the forefront of understanding the world and shaping it for centuries. Since the Enlightenment, Oxford has been one of the world’s most influential and international universities.

• Today, one third of our students and academic staff are from overseas.
• We collaborate with colleagues around the world on topics of international importance, from the origins of the universe to the challenges of present-day globalisation.
• Our tutorial system is famous for the intensive, rigorous education it provides.
• Our graduate programmes train academic leaders around the globe.
• Centuries before most of today’s leading universities existed, we welcomed our first international student, Emo of Friesland, in 1190. Decades before most universities became interested in international students, the Rhodes Scholarships started bringing talented international students to Oxford.
• We have educated 25 British prime ministers and over 30 foreign presidents and prime ministers.
• Oxford has defined the English language for many people around the world, through the dictionaries and other books of Oxford university Press (OUP), the world’s largest university press, present in 50 countries.

Shaping the world we live in today

Our research and students have fundamentally shaped the world we live in today.

• The worldwide web was created by Tim Berners-Lee - who studied as an undergraduate at Oxford.
• Dr Manmohan Singh, prime minister of India, helped liberalise trade in India in the early 1990s, leading to substantial economic growth and reduction in poverty rates - after doing his doctorate in economics in Oxford.
• Oxford Professor Nick White proved the life-saving efficacy of today’s most effective anti-malarial drug, artemesinin, in the treatment of severe malaria.
• Oxford academic Fred Taylor developed ‘infrared remote sensing’, which allows us to monitor the heat radiated by the earth’s atmosphere, a critical tool in analysing climate change.
• Oxford professors (the late) Sir Richard Doll and Sir Richard Peto identified the full role of cigarette smoking in causing lung cancer and vascular diseases, and have quantified its likely impact in rapidly growing populations such as China.
   
  http://www.ox.ac.uk/international/oxford_british_and_international/index.html