University of Edinburgh

The University of Edinburgh is a public research university in Edinburgh, Scotland, and one of the four ancient universities of Scotland.爱丁堡大学（The University of Edinburgh）是一所位于苏格兰爱丁堡的公立研究型大学，也是苏格兰四所古典大学之一。

Founded by royal charter in 1582 and teaching since 1583, it was central to the Scottish Enlightenment and is the sixth oldest university in continuous operation in the English-speaking world, ranking 35th in the 2027 QS World University Rankings.学校依 1582 年皇家特许状创设，自 1583 年起授课，是苏格兰启蒙运动的核心，也是英语世界持续办学历史第六悠久的大学，在 2027 年 QS 世界大学排名中位列全球第 35。

In 2024/25 it had 39,015 students, of whom 25,790 were undergraduates and 13,225 postgraduate, taught by 8,830 academic staff, with an endowment of 604.8 million pounds and a budget of 1.437 billion pounds.2024 至 2025 学年学校有学生 39015 人，其中本科生 25790 人、研究生 13225 人，学术人员 8830 人，捐赠基金为 6.048 亿英镑，预算 14.37 亿英镑。

History

• The university owes its foundation to Robert Reid, bishop of Orkney, who on his death in 1558 left eight thousand marks to establish a college in Edinburgh, intending that it teach rhetoric and poetry as well as traditional philosophy.学校的创设归功于奥克尼主教罗伯特·里德，他于 1558 年去世时留下 8000 马克在爱丁堡建立一所学院，并打算除传统哲学之外还教授修辞学与诗歌。

• The Reformation Parliament of 1560 delayed the bequest by more than twenty years, and when Reid's heirs refused to pay, the town council petitioned James VI to intervene.1560 年的宗教改革议会使这笔遗赠的落实推迟了二十多年；里德的后人拒付后，爱丁堡市议会呈请詹姆斯六世介入。

• James VI arranged a compromise and granted a royal charter on 14 April 1582 authorising the town council to found a college of higher learning.詹姆斯六世促成一项折中安排，并于 1582 年 4 月 14 日颁授皇家特许状，授权市议会创办一所高等学院。

• This was unprecedented in Scotland, where every earlier university had been founded by papal bull rather than by a secular authority.这在苏格兰是史无前例的，因为此前所有苏格兰大学都是依教宗诏书而非世俗当局设立。

• Teaching began in October 1583 under Robert Rollock, a graduate of the University of St Andrews, with between eighty and ninety students.1583 年 10 月，在圣安德鲁斯大学毕业生罗伯特·罗洛克主持下开课，首批学生有八十至九十人。

• The college was first called Tounis College, and its teaching covered the arts and theology.学院最初名为「市镇学院」，教学内容涵盖文科与神学。

• Rollock was at first the only teacher of the first-year intake, taking them through the whole four-year course, and forty-seven of them took the master of arts degree in 1587.罗洛克起初是首届一年级学生唯一的教师，负责他们四年全部课程；1587 年其中四十七人获得文学硕士学位。

• In 1617 James VI visited the college, debated with its professors and ordered that it be renamed the College of King James.1617 年，詹姆斯六世到访学院，与教授进行学术辩论，并下令将其更名为詹姆斯国王学院。

• During the seventeenth century the institution came to be called the University of Edinburgh, and after the Glorious Revolution of 1688 the Scottish parliament purged it of Jacobite sympathisers.十七世纪间，该机构逐渐被称为爱丁堡大学；1688 年光荣革命后，苏格兰议会将其中的詹姆斯党同情者清除。

• The principal Alexander Monro and several professors were dismissed in 1690, and Gilbert Rule, one of the visitors, was appointed principal in his place.校长亚历山大·门罗与数位教授于 1690 年被解职，视察员之一吉尔伯特·鲁尔被任命为继任校长。

• For much of the early eighteenth century the town council and the university quarrelled over appointments, curricula and examinations, and in 1704 the council seized a large part of the university's records.十八世纪前期，市议会与大学长期在人事、课程与考试上争执；1704 年市议会夺取了学校大量档案。

• The faculty of law was founded in 1707 and the faculty of arts in 1708, the year in which Principal William Carstares replaced the Scottish regenting system with specialist professors on the Dutch model.法学院于 1707 年设立，艺术学院于 1708 年设立；同年校长威廉·卡斯塔斯以荷兰式的专家教授制取代了苏格兰原有的导师带班制。

• In 1726 it established the first medical school in Britain, modelled on Leiden, with four of its six professors trained there.1726 年，学校以莱顿大学为模式建立了英国第一所医学院，六位教授中有四位曾在莱顿受训。

• The medical school quickly became a centre of European medicine and was the main source of the university's early reputation.医学院迅速成为欧洲医学的中心，也是学校早期声誉的主要来源。

• In 1762 Hugh Blair was appointed the first Regius Professor of Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, a step that established English literature as an academic subject.1762 年，休·布莱尔获任首位修辞学与美文学钦定教授，此举把英国文学确立为一门专业学科。

• In September 1745 the army of Charles Edward Stuart occupied Edinburgh, and staff, students and alumni formed a company to defend the city for the Hanoverian government.1745 年 9 月，查尔斯·爱德华·斯图亚特的军队占领爱丁堡，学校教职员、学生与校友组成一个连，为汉诺威王朝政府守卫城市。

• Professors and graduates of the university were central to the Scottish Enlightenment, and Joseph Black discovered carbon dioxide while Daniel Rutherford first isolated nitrogen there.学校的教授与毕业生是苏格兰启蒙运动的核心；约瑟夫·布拉克在此发现二氧化碳，丹尼尔·卢瑟福则最早分离出氮。

• Adam Smith developed his ideas on political economy at Edinburgh, publishing The Theory of Moral Sentiments and later The Wealth of Nations, which were quickly translated across Europe.亚当·斯密在爱丁堡阐发其政治经济学思想，先后出版《道德情操论》与《国富论》，两书很快被译介到欧洲各地。

• In 1783 professors of the university led the founding of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the national academy of science, to match the Royal Society in London.1783 年，学校教授牵头创立苏格兰国家科学院爱丁堡皇家学会，以与伦敦的皇家学会比肩。

• In 1843 more than 450 evangelical ministers left the Church of Scotland in the Disruption, and three years later the Free Church founded New College as its training college.1843 年大分裂中，450 多名福音派牧师脱离苏格兰教会；三年后自由教会创办新学院，作为其神职人员培养机构。

• Medicine continued to flourish in the nineteenth century: James Young Simpson discovered the anaesthetic use of chloroform, Alexander Wood invented the hypodermic syringe and Joseph Lister pioneered antiseptic surgery.医学在十九世纪继续兴盛：詹姆斯·杨·辛普森发现氯仿的麻醉用途，亚历山大·伍德发明皮下注射器，约瑟夫·李斯特开创消毒外科。

• The Scottish Universities Act of 1858 finally gave the university full control of its own affairs after 275 years of town council government.1858 年《苏格兰大学法案》在 275 年市议会治理之后，终于赋予学校对自身事务的完全权力。

• In 1869, led by Sophia Jex-Blake, the Edinburgh Seven were admitted to study medicine, the first women to enter a British university degree course, and although the university blocked them from graduating their campaign led to an act of 1889 permitting women to enter all Scottish universities.1869 年，在索菲亚·杰克斯—布莱克带领下，「爱丁堡七人组」获准学习医学，成为英国首批进入大学学位课程的女性；尽管学校阻止她们毕业，她们的抗争促成了 1889 年允许女性入读所有苏格兰大学的法案。

• Edinburgh formally admitted women to study medicine in 1893, and its students' union, founded in 1884 and housed in Teviot Row House from 1889, occupies the oldest purpose-built student union building in the world.1893 年学校正式允许女性攻读医学；其学生会创建于 1884 年、1889 年迁入特维奥特排屋，那栋建筑是世界上最早的专门学生会大楼。

• In 1919 the university bought West Mains Farm to build a science campus, and George V laid the foundation stone of its first building in July 1920. The site became known as King's Buildings.1919 年学校购入西梅恩斯农场以建设理科校区；1920 年 7 月乔治五世为首座建筑奠基，该校区被称为国王校区。

• Under the Scottish Universities Act of 1932, New College was formally merged into the divinity faculty in 1935, freeing the Old College buildings for the law school.依 1932 年《苏格兰大学法案》，新学院于 1935 年正式并入神学系，旧学院校舍则腾出供法学院使用。

• In 1941 the university created a Polish School of Medicine for Polish army doctors and refugees, which taught in Polish and awarded Polish medical degrees until it closed in 1949.1941 年，学校为波兰军队的医生与难民设立波兰医学院，以波兰语授课并颁发波兰医学学位，1949 年停办。

• In 1951 the Royal (Dick) Veterinary College, founded in 1823, became part of the university, and from the 1950s the George Square area was redeveloped with modernist buildings.1951 年，创立于 1823 年的皇家（迪克）兽医学院并入学校；自二十世纪五十年代起，乔治广场一带被改造，建起现代主义建筑。

Academics

• Edinburgh teaches across three colleges, arts humanities and social sciences, science and engineering, and medicine and veterinary medicine, divided into about twenty schools.学校的教学分属三个学院——艺术人文与社会科学、科学与工程、医学与兽医学，下设约二十个学系。

• Its strengths include medicine and veterinary medicine, informatics, engineering, the physical sciences, law, philosophy and the humanities.其强项包括医学与兽医学、信息学、工程、物理科学、法律、哲学与人文学科。

• It offers the largest range of degree programmes of any Scottish university and admits students from Scotland, the rest of the United Kingdom and more than 150 countries.学校开设的学位项目数量为苏格兰各大学之最，学生来自苏格兰、英国其他地区以及一百五十多个国家。

• As of 2024/25 it had 25,790 undergraduates and 13,225 postgraduates, taught by 8,830 academic staff and supported by 9,050 administrative staff.截至 2024 至 2025 学年，学校有本科生 25790 人、研究生 13225 人，学术人员 8830 人、行政人员 9050 人。

• Its endowment of 604.8 million pounds in 2025 is the third largest in the United Kingdom, after Cambridge and Oxford.其 2025 年捐赠基金为 6.048 亿英镑，在英国位居第三，仅次于剑桥与牛津。

• In the 2021 Research Excellence Framework it placed fourth in the United Kingdom for research quality, behind Oxford, UCL and Cambridge.在 2021 年英国研究卓越框架评估中，其研究质量位列全英第四，仅次于牛津、伦敦大学学院与剑桥。

• The university receives more undergraduate applications than any British university except one, and offers four-year honours degrees in most subjects.学校收到的本科申请量在英国高校中位居第二，其大多数学科授予四年制荣誉学位。

• Its medical school, founded in 1726, is the oldest in the English-speaking world and works with teaching hospitals across Edinburgh.其医学院创建于 1726 年，是英语世界历史最悠久的医学院，与爱丁堡各地教学医院合作。

• The Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies at Easter Bush is one of the leading veterinary schools in Europe.位于伊斯特布什的皇家（迪克）兽医学院是欧洲领先的兽医学院之一。

• Its school of informatics is the largest in the United Kingdom and covers artificial intelligence, computer science, linguistics and cognitive science.其信息学系是英国规模最大的，涵盖人工智能、计算机科学、语言学与认知科学。

• Edinburgh College of Art and Moray House School of Education and Sport are part of the university, giving it strength in the arts and in teacher education.爱丁堡艺术学院与莫雷教育与体育学院均为学校组成部分，使其在艺术与教师教育方面实力突出。

• The university runs joint programmes with other institutions and takes part in Una Europa, a European alliance of research universities.学校与其他院校开设联合项目，并参与欧洲研究型大学联盟 Una Europa。

• As of 2026 its alumni and staff included twenty Nobel laureates, four Pulitzer Prize winners, three Turing Award winners and a winner of both the Fields Medal and the Abel Prize.截至 2026 年，其校友与教职员中包括二十位诺贝尔奖得主、四位普利策奖得主、三位图灵奖得主，以及一位同时获得菲尔兹奖与阿贝尔奖的学者。

• Its library system includes the main library at George Square and special collections of manuscripts, maps and archives.其图书馆系统包括乔治广场的主图书馆，以及手稿、地图与档案等特藏。

• The university is a member of the Russell Group, the Coimbra Group, the League of European Research Universities and Universitas 21.学校是罗素集团、科英布拉集团、欧洲研究型大学联盟与 Universitas 21 的成员。

• Three British prime ministers were educated at Edinburgh, along with heads of government and ministers of several other countries.有三位英国首相在此受教育，此外还有若干其他国家的政府首脑与部长。

Campus

• The university's buildings are dispersed across Edinburgh rather than concentrated on one site, from the Old Town to the southern suburbs.学校建筑散布爱丁堡各处而非集中于单一校园，从老城一直延伸到南部郊区。

• Old College, designed by Robert Adam at the end of the eighteenth century, stands at the junction of South Bridge and Chambers Street and now houses the law school.由罗伯特·亚当在十八世纪末设计的旧学院位于南桥街与钱伯斯街交汇处，如今是法学院所在地。

• New College on the Mound, built from 1846 as the Free Church college, houses the school of divinity.位于土丘的新学院自 1846 年起作为自由教会学院建造，现为神学院所在地。

• George Square and the surrounding streets contain the central administration, the main library and many humanities and social science departments.乔治广场及周边街区设有学校的中央行政机构、主图书馆以及许多人文学科与社会科学院系。

• King's Buildings in the southern suburbs is the science and engineering campus, with laboratories and the university's engineering workshops.位于南部郊区的国王校区是科学与工程校区，设有实验室与工程实训车间。

• The Edinburgh BioQuarter at Little France brings together the medical school, research institutes and the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh.位于利特法兰西的爱丁堡生物园区汇集了医学院、研究所与爱丁堡皇家医院。

• The Easter Bush campus south of the city houses the veterinary school and its farm and hospital facilities.城市以南的伊斯特布什校区设有兽医学院及其农场与动物医院设施。

• The McEwan Hall, completed in 1897, is used for graduation ceremonies, and Teviot Row House, of 1889, is the students' union building.1897 年建成的麦克尤恩厅用于毕业典礼；1889 年的特维奥特排屋则是学生会大楼。

• The university's colours are red and blue, and the campus buildings range from eighteenth-century neoclassical to twentieth-century modernist and later styles.学校代表色为红与蓝，校园建筑从十八世纪新古典主义到二十世纪现代主义及更晚的风格兼而有之。

• Edinburgh College of Art occupies a site in the Old Town, and Moray House is near the Scottish Parliament at Holyrood.爱丁堡艺术学院位于老城一处院址，莫雷学院则在荷里路德苏格兰议会附近。

Reputation

• Edinburgh ranks 35th in the 2027 QS World University Rankings, 29th in the 2027 Times Higher Education World University Rankings, 38th in the 2026 Academic Ranking of World Universities and 41st in the 2026-2027 U.S. News Best Global Universities.爱丁堡大学在 2027 年 QS 世界大学排名中位列全球第 35，2027 年泰晤士高等教育世界大学排名第 29，2026 年软科世界大学学术排名第 38，2026 至 2027 年度 US News 全球最佳大学排名第 41。^[1]

• It is the largest university in Scotland by student numbers and the fourth largest in the United Kingdom.按学生人数计，它是苏格兰规模最大的大学，在英国位列第四。

• Its endowment is the third largest in the United Kingdom, and it receives the second largest number of undergraduate applications in the country.其捐赠基金规模在英国排名第三，本科申请量则位居全英第二。

• Its alumni and staff include twenty Nobel laureates, four Pulitzer Prize winners and three Turing Award winners, and its athletes have won ten Olympic gold medals.其校友与教职员中包括二十位诺贝尔奖得主、四位普利策奖得主与三位图灵奖得主，其运动员共获得十枚奥运金牌。

• In the 2021 Research Excellence Framework the university placed fourth in the United Kingdom for the quality of its research.在 2021 年英国研究卓越框架评估中，学校的研究质量位列全英第四。

• Edinburgh is one of four ancient universities in Scotland and has educated three British prime ministers.爱丁堡大学是苏格兰四所古典大学之一，培养了三位英国首相。

• Its medical and veterinary schools are among the most competitive in the country, and its informatics and engineering departments rank highly in national assessments.其医学院与兽医学院是全英竞争最激烈的院系之列，信息学与工程类院系在全国评估中也位居前列。

• The university's alumni have shaped the Scottish Enlightenment, modern physics, medicine and literature, and it remains a centre of Scottish intellectual life.学校校友塑造了苏格兰启蒙运动以及现代物理、医学与文学，至今仍是苏格兰知识生活的中心。

• Its main library and special collections support research across the humanities and sciences, and the university press publishes scholarly work.其主图书馆与特藏支撑人文与科学领域的研究，学校出版社则出版学术著作。

Student life

• The university has no official motto, and its traditions instead centre on its history, its societies and its position in the city of Edinburgh.学校没有正式校训，其传统更多体现在历史、社团以及它与爱丁堡这座城市的关系上。

• The students' union, founded in 1884, is one of the oldest in the world and runs societies, sports clubs, welfare services and venues.学生会创建于 1884 年，是世界上历史最悠久的学生会之一，负责社团、体育俱乐部、福利服务与活动场所。

• The university's rector is elected by students and staff and represents their interests, while the chancellor is the formal head.学校荣誉校长由学生与教职员选举产生，代表他们的利益；校监则是形式上的首脑。

• Freshers' Week at the start of the academic year and the graduation ceremonies in McEwan Hall are the main fixed points of the student calendar.学年之初的迎新周与在麦克尤恩厅举行的毕业典礼，是学生日历上最主要的固定节点。

• Students take part in the Edinburgh Festival and Fringe each August, when the city's cultural programme draws performers from around the world.每年八月，学生参与爱丁堡国际艺术节与边缘艺术节，此时城市的文化节目吸引着来自世界各地的演出者。

• Sport is organised through the students' association and university clubs, with facilities at the Pleasance and at Peffermill playing fields.体育事务由学生协会与校内俱乐部组织，设施位于普莱森斯与佩弗米尔运动场。

• The university has hundreds of societies covering academic subjects, performance, politics, religion and volunteering.学校有数百个社团，涵盖学术、表演、政治、宗教与志愿服务。

• Because the university is spread through the city, student life is closely bound up with Edinburgh's tenement districts, cafés and libraries.由于学校遍布全城，学生生活与爱丁堡的公寓街区、咖啡馆与图书馆紧密交织。

• Debating, journalism and student media are longstanding features, and the student newspaper has been published since the nineteenth century.辩论、新闻与学生媒体是长期传统，学生报纸自十九世纪起持续出版。

Notable people

• Robert Reid left the bequest that founded the university, and Robert Rollock was its first teacher and first principal.罗伯特·里德留下创办学校的遗赠，罗伯特·罗洛克则是其第一位教师与首任校长。

• Charles Darwin studied medicine and then natural history at Edinburgh before his voyage on the Beagle.查尔斯·达尔文在乘贝格尔号航行之前，先后在爱丁堡学习医学与博物学。

• James Clerk Maxwell, who unified electricity and magnetism, and the philosopher David Hume both studied at Edinburgh.统一电磁理论的詹姆斯·克拉克·麦克斯韦与哲学家大卫·休谟都曾在爱丁堡求学。

• Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, was born in Edinburgh and studied at the university.电话发明者亚历山大·格拉汉姆·贝尔生于爱丁堡，并在此求学。

• The geologist James Hutton, a founder of modern geology, and the mathematician Thomas Bayes also studied at Edinburgh.现代地质学奠基人詹姆斯·赫顿与数学家托马斯·贝叶斯也曾在爱丁堡求学。

• Among its medical alumni are Joseph Lister, a pioneer of antiseptic surgery, and James Young Simpson, who introduced chloroform anaesthesia.其医学界校友包括消毒外科的先驱约瑟夫·李斯特，以及引入氯仿麻醉的詹姆斯·杨·辛普森。

• Peter Higgs, who gave his name to the Higgs boson and won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2013, was a professor at the university.以希格斯玻色子命名并于 2013 年获得诺贝尔物理学奖的彼得·希格斯，是该校教授。

• Geoffrey Hinton, a Turing Award winner and a leading figure in machine learning, and the economist James Mirrlees, a Nobel laureate, are among its graduates.图灵奖得主、机器学习领军人物杰弗里·辛顿与诺贝尔奖得主、经济学家詹姆斯·莫里斯，都是其毕业生。

• The writers Walter Scott and Arthur Conan Doyle, and the essayist Thomas Carlyle, were educated at Edinburgh.作家沃尔特·司各特与阿瑟·柯南·道尔，以及散文家托马斯·卡莱尔，都曾在爱丁堡受教育。

• Its Chinese alumni include Gu Hongming, the physician Zhong Nanshan, the aesthetician Zhu Guangqian and the historian Fu Sinian.其中国校友包括辜鸿铭、医学家钟南山、美学家朱光潜与历史学家傅斯年。