University of California, Berkeley

The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. It was established in 1868 and is the state's first land-grant university. It is a founding member of the Association of American Universities and is the founding campus of the University of California system. Berkeley has the most top-ranked departments nationally and is one of the highest-ranked universities worldwide. It produces multiple entrepreneurs and attracts funding for startup companies with more having been founded than any other university.

Berkeley hosts multiple research institutes and played a role in the Manhattan Project and the discovery of sixteen chemical elements. It also has three national laboratories for the U.S. Department of Energy (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and Los Alamos National Laboratory). Berkeley's athletic teams, which compete as the California Golden Bears in the Pac-12 Conference, have won 107 national championships. Berkeley has a strict academic standard for athlete admission and alumni have won 223 Olympic medals (including 121 gold medals).

Berkeley is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities—Very high research activity". Among Berkeley's alumni, faculty, and researchers are 190 recipients of the MacArthur Fellowship, 107 Nobel laureates, 68 recipients of the National Medal of Science, 34 Pulitzer Prize winners, 30 Wolf Prize winners, 25 Turing Award winners, 22 cabinet members, 19 Academy Award winners, 14 Fields Medalists, and 10 state governors. Alumni also include seven heads of state or government, six chief justices, and twenty-five billionaires. It is a leading producer of Fulbright, Rhodes, Marshall and Gates Cambridge Scholars.