Birmingham City University

Birmingham City University (abbrev. as BCU; and previously Birmingham Polytechnic and the University of Central England in Birmingham) is a newly established British university in the city of Birmingham, England. It is the second largest of five universities in the city, the other four being Aston University, University of Birmingham, University College Birmingham, and Newman University. It is the third most highly ranked of the five universities in Birmingham according to the Complete University Guide, below both the University of Birmingham and Aston University.Initially established as the Birmingham College of Art with roots dating back to 1843, it was designated as a polytechnic in 1971 and gained university status in 1992.

The university has three main campuses serving four faculties, and offers courses in art and design, business, the built environment, computing, education, engineering, English, healthcare, law, the performing arts, social sciences, and technology. A £125million extension to its campus in the city centre of Birmingham, part of the Eastside development of a new technology and learning quarter, is opening in two stages, with the first phase having opened its doors in 2013.The university is a member of the million+ group of New Universities.

Roughly half of the university's full-time students are from the West Midlands, and a large percentage of these are from ethnic minorities. The university runs access and foundation programmes through an international network of associated universities and further education colleges, and has the highest intake of foreign students in the Birmingham area.

King's College London

King's College London (informally King's or KCL; formerly styled King's College, London) is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom, and a constituent college of the federal University of London. It is arguably the third-oldest university in England, having been founded by King George IV and the Duke of Wellington in 1829 and received its royal charter in the same year. St Thomas' Hospital, which is now a teaching hospital of King's College London School of Medicine, has roots dating back to 1173 with its medical school established in 1550. King's became one of the two founding colleges of the University of London in 1836. It has grown through mergers, including with Queen Elizabeth College and Chelsea College of Science and Technology (in 1985), the Institute of Psychiatry (in 1997), and the United Medical and Dental Schools of Guy's and St Thomas' Hospitals and Florence Nightingale School of Nursing and Midwifery (in 1998).

King's has its main campus on the Strand in central London, and has three other Thames-side campuses and another in Denmark Hill in south London. Its academic activities are organised into nine faculties which are subdivided into numerous departments, centres and research divisions. King's is the largest centre for graduate and post-graduate medical teaching and biomedical research in Europe; it is home to six Medical Research Council centres and is a founding member of the King's Health Partners academic health sciences centre. It is a member of numerous academic organisations, including the Association of Commonwealth Universities, the European University Association and the Russell Group, and forms part of the 'golden triangle' of leading British universities. King's has around 25,000 students and 6,113 staff and had a total income of £604 million in 2013/14, of which £172 million was from research grants and contracts.

King's is ranked 16th in the world (5th in the UK and 6th in Europe) in the 2014 QS World University Rankings,and 40th in the world (7th in the UK and 10th in Europe) in the 2014 Times Higher Education World University Rankings.In rankings produced by Times Higher Education based upon the results of the 2014 Research Excellence Framework, King's was ranked 6th overall for "research power" and 7th for GPA. There are 12 Nobel Prize laureates amongst King's alumni and current and former faculty. In a survey by The New York Times assessing the most valued graduates by business leaders, King's College London graduates ranked 22nd in the world and 5th in the UK. In the 2014 Global Employability University Survey of international recruiters King's is ranked 35th in the world and 7th in the UK.