The University of Cambridge is a collegiate public research university, founded in 1209, making it the second-oldest university in the English-speaking world and the world’s fourth-oldest surviving university.  Cambridge is consistently ranked as one of the world’s best universities.

The University is formed from a variety of institutions which include 31 constituent colleges and over 100 academic departments organised into six schools.  Last year the university had an income of £1.6bn and, with the colleges, a combined endowment of around £5.9bn which is the largest of any university outside the United States.

The University has two main bodies involved with Build-Offsite:

• The Estate Management division at the University of Cambridge is a multi-disciplinary organisation responsible for the development, management and maintenance of the University estate, along with the provision of a variety of related services.
• North West Cambridge Development (NWCD) is a vehicle set up to develop and deliver a £1.5Bn, 150 hectare mixed-use estate providing some 3,000 homes, 2000 student rooms, School, Energy Centre, Supermarket, Community Centre and Infrastructure & Facilities required to support such a major development. The development is the single largest capital investment that the University has made in its history.

The University’s operational estate, currently valued at £2.4bn, is broad and complex including 800 year old buildings protected by English Heritage, highly sustainable, state-of-the-art and world leading research facilities and a University farm.  The Estate currently comprises 336 operational buildings with a total gross area of 640,000m².

The investment pipeline is valued at around £3Bn (excluding NWCD) while the current capital building programme is worth £1bn delivering a diverse portfolio of projects.