Undergraduate teaching at Cambridge is organised around weekly small-group supervisions in the colleges - a feature unique to the Oxbridge system. Cambridge does not have a main campus, and its colleges and central facilities are scattered throughout the city. All the colleges are self-governing institutions within the university, each controlling its own membership and with its own internal structure and activities. The two English ancient universities share many common features and are often referred to jointly as Oxbridge.Ĭambridge is formed from a variety of institutions which include 31 semi-autonomous constituent colleges and over 150 academic departments, faculties and other institutions organised into six schools. The university grew out of an association of scholars who left the University of Oxford after a dispute with the townspeople. Founded in 1209 and granted a royal charter by King Henry III in 1231, Cambridge is the second-oldest university in the English-speaking world and the world's fourth-oldest surviving university. The University of Cambridge (legal name: The Chancellor, Masters, and Scholars of the University of Cambridge) is a collegiate research university in Cambridge, United Kingdom.

University of cambridge notable alumni