The University of Southampton is a public research university located in Southampton, England. The origins of the university date back to the founding of the Hartley Institution in 1862 following a legacy to the Corporation of Southampton by Henry Robinson Hartley. In 1902, the Institution developed into the Hartley University College awarding degrees from the University of London. On 29 April 1952, the institution was granted a Royal Charter to give the University of Southampton full university status, allowing it to award its own degrees.

The university has seven teaching campuses. The main campus is located in the Highfield area of Southampton and is supplemented by four other campuses within the city: Avenue Campus housing the Faculty of Humanities, the National Oceanography Centre housing courses in Ocean and Earth Sciences, Southampton General Hospital offering courses in Medicine and Health Sciences, and Boldrewood Campus an engineering and maritime technology campus housing also the university's strategic ally Lloyd's Register. In addition, the university operates a School of Art based in nearby Winchester and an international branch in Malaysia offering courses in Engineering. Each campus is equipped with its own library facilities.

The University of Southampton currently has 16,150 undergraduate and 7,645 postgraduate students, making it the largest university by higher education students in the South East region. The University of Southampton Students' Union, provides support, representation and social activities for the students ranging from involvement in the Union's four media outlets to any of the 200 affiliated societies and 80 sports. The university owns and operates a sports ground at nearby Wide Lane for use by students and also operates a sports centre on the main campus.

In the 2014 Research Excellence Framework Southampton was ranked 8th for research intensity. Besides being recognised as one of the leading research universities in the UK, Southampton has also achieved consistently high scores for its teaching and learning activities. It additionally has one of the highest proportions of income derived from research activities in Britain, and is regularly ranked in the top 100 universities in the world. As of 2015, Southampton is one of the few universities to achieve a top 20 UK position in the most established national and international rankings. In the 2016 edition of U.S. News & World Report, Southampton is placed in the top 10 of British Universities. It is a founding member of the Russell Group of research-intensive universities in Britain and a member of the European University Association, the Association of Commonwealth Universities and is an accredited institution of the Worldwide Universities Network.