Royal Holloway, University of London , formally incorporated as Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, is a public research university and a constituent college of the federal University of London. It has three faculties, 20 academic departments and c. 9,265 undergraduate and postgraduate students from over 100 countries. The campus is just west of Egham, Surrey, within the Greater London Urban Area, although outside the M25 motorway and c. 19 miles from the geographic centre of London.

The Egham campus was founded in 1879 by the Victorian entrepreneur and philanthropist Thomas Holloway. Royal Holloway College was officially opened in 1886 by Queen Victoria as an all-women college. It became a member of the University of London in 1900. In 1945, the college admitted male postgraduate students, and in 1965, around 100 of the first male undergraduates. In 1985, Royal Holloway merged with Bedford College . The merged college was named Royal Holloway and Bedford New College , this remaining the official registered name of the college by Act of Parliament. The campus is dominated by the Founder's Building, a Grade I listed red-brick building modelled on the Château de Chambord in the Loire Valley, France.

Royal Holloway is ranked 27th in the UK and 173rd in the world by the Times Higher Education World University Rankings for 2016–17. The guide has described Royal Holloway as "truly world class". Royal Holloway is ranked in 30th place in the world for 2016 in the category of "International Outlook", recognising its broader outlook as a global university. The rankings use three separate indicators to judge "international outlook"—proportion of international staff and students, and research in terms of papers that are co-authored with at least one international partner.

Royal Holloway is highly rated for the wide-reaching impact of its research, scoring 98.9 per cent for citations , further cementing Royal Holloway’s status as one of the world’s premier research institutions. It is particularly strong in arts and humanities. Admission into courses in English, Creative Writing, Psychology and Music are very competitive with a 9:1 applicants to place ratio. Royal Holloway's degree courses in Music, Information Security, Physics, International Relations, Earth Sciences, and Media Arts are also particularly strong, frequently ranking in the top 10 of national subject rankings. There are strong links and exchange programmes with leading institutions in the United States, Canada, and Hong Kong, notably Yale University, the University of Toronto, and the University of Hong Kong. Royal Holloway was a member of the 1994 Group until 2013, when the group dissolved.