Senate House, designed by Charles Holden home to the university's central administration offices and its library
The University of London, founded in 1836, is a federation of colleges which together constitute one of the world's largest universities. Somewhere between 10 and 20 percent of all UK students attend one of its colleges, which include some of the most prestigious places of study in the world. Many universities in Britain and abroad began life as associate colleges of the university, offering its degrees under licence. In recent years this aspect of the university's work has revived, because of globalisation, and an increasing number of overseas academic institutes offer University of London diplomas and degrees. The Main offices of the University of London are at Senate House, which includes a priceless library and the residence of the Chancellor.
The university is a federal body made up of a number of highly autonomous colleges and institutes, widely scattered across greater London. For most practical purposes, its constituent colleges are usually treated as individual universities. Under English law, some of these are Recognised Bodies with the authority to grant their own degrees (which means that they enjoy the same status as other institutions with their own degree-awarding power), while others are Listed Bodies that offer courses leading to degrees from the University of London (which means that they have the same status as the constitutent institutions of the University of Wales and the colleges of Oxford, Cambridge, and Durham).
University College London (UCL), incorporating the Eastman Dental Institute, the Institute of Child Health, the Institute of Neurology, the Institute of Ophthalmology, the Royal Free and University College Medical School, the School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES), and the Slade School of Fine Art
