The School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) is a college of the University of London and the only higher education institution in the UK specialising in the study of Asia, Africa and the Near and Middle East.
In 2008, SOAS jumped 15 places up to ninth best university nationwide in The Good University Guide, and we were rated fourth in London. We also moved three places up to eighth in The Guardian newspaper's league tables of top UK universities.
SOAS is a remarkable institution. Uniquely combining language scholarship, disciplinary expertise and regional focus, it has the largest concentration in Europe of academic staff concerned with Africa, Asia and the Middle East.
On the one hand, this means that SOAS remains a guardian of specialised knowledge in languages and periods and regions not available anywhere else in the UK. On the other hand, it means that SOAS scholars grapple with pressing issues - democracy, development, human rights, identity, legal systems, poverty, social change - confronting two-thirds of humankind.
This makes SOAS synonymous with intellectual excitement and achievement. It is a global academic base and a crucial resource for London. We live in a world of shrinking borders and of economic and technological simultaneity. Yet it is also a world in which difference and regionalism present themselves acutely. It is a world that SOAS is distinctively positioned to analyse, understand and explain.
Our academic focus on the languages, cultures and societies of Africa, Asia and the Middle East makes us an indispensable interpreter in a complex world.
SOAS has a library containing over 1.2 volumes in 400 languages, which is used by students and visiting scholars alike. This extensive collection comprises many rare and valuable printed works, manuscripts, and important collections of archives and maps. It is the national library for the study of Asia, Africa and the Middle East.
All students at SOAS have access to computers on the campus and all SOAS student residences are online, allowing students with computers to access the internet and email from their study bedrooms. The School offers learning support and personal tutors for all students as well as pre-sessional and in-sessional English for international students. SOAS is also home to the prestigious Brunei Gallery, built as a result of a generous benefaction from HM The Sultan of Brunei Darussalam which includes a gallery dedicated to exhibiting work from and about Asia and Africa.
Key facts
SOAS at a glance:
- SOAS has more than 4,600 students from more than 130 countries; roughly 35 per cent are from countries outside the UK/EU
- With around 300 staff members, SOAS has the largest concentration of academics concerned with Asia, Africa and the Middle East at any university in the world
- In the 2008 RAE exercise the work of seven units of assessment, covering 11 SOAS departments had sixty per cent or more of their work ranked at either the highest grade of 4* (world-leading quality) or 3* (internationally excellent).
- Small group teaching remains an important feature of study at SOAS - our student-staff ratio (12:1) is one of the best in the UK
- SOAS has about 100 postgraduate programmes (taught and distance learning) in the social sciences, humanities and languages with a distinctive regional focus and global relevance
- The School offers an unparalleled range of non-European languages, all of which can be studied without prior knowledge
