The University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign (also known as U of I, Illinois, or colloquially as the University of Illinois or UIUC) is a public research university in the U.S. state of Illinois and the flagship institution of the University of Illinois System. Founded in 1867 as a land-grant institution, its campus is located in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana.
The University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign is a member of the Association of American Universities and is classified as a R1 Doctoral Research University under the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, which denotes the highest research activity. In fiscal year 2017, research expenditures at Illinois totaled $642 million. The campus library system possesses the second-largest university library in the United States by holdings after Harvard University. The university also hosts the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) and is home to the fastest supercomputer on a university campus.
The university contains 16 schools and colleges and offers more than 150 undergraduates and over 100 graduate programs of study. The university holds 651 buildings on 6,370 acres (2,578 ha) and its annual operating budget in 2016 was over $2 billion. The University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign also operates a Research Park home to innovation centers for over 90 start-up companies and multinational corporations, including Abbott, AbbVie, Caterpillar, Capital One, Dow, State Farm, and Yahoo, among others.
As of 2017, 30 Nobel laureates have been affiliated with the university as alumni, faculty members, or researchers.
