ABOUT UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKLEY

The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public research university in Berkeley, California. Founded in 1868, Berkeley is the flagship institution of the ten research universities affiliated with the University of California system. It is often ranked as a top-ten university in the world and the top public university in the United States.

Established in 1868 as the University of California, resulting from the merger of the private College of California and the public Agricultural, Mining and Mechanical Arts College in Oakland, Berkeley offers approximately 350 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in a wide range of disciplines. The Dwinelle Bill of March 5, 1868 (California Assembly Bill No. 583) stated that the "University shall have for its design, to provide instruction and thorough and complete education in all departments of science, literature and art, industrial and profession[al] pursuits, and general education, and also special courses of instruction in preparation for the professions".

Berkeley is one of the 14 founding members of the Association of American Universities and continues to have very high research activity, with $789 million in R&D expenditures in the fiscal year ended June 30, 2015. Today, Berkeley maintains close relationships with three United States Department of Energy National Laboratories—Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Los Alamos National Laboratory—and is home to many world-renowned research institutes, including the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute and the Space Sciences Laboratory. Through its partner institution University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), Berkeley also offers a joint medical program at the UCSF Medical Center, the top hospital in California.