Origins: Established in 1845 as one of three Queen's Colleges in Ireland; became a fully-fledged university in 1908, adopting its present name "The Queen's University of Belfast".
Chancellor: Senator George Mitchell.
Student body: 23,000 students including undergraduate, postgraduate, full and part-time students; undergraduate population capped at 10,200; 3,361 students admitted last year.
Campus: almost half of the college's 250-plus buildings are listed as being of architectural merit. Main campus in south Belfast.
Access: exceeds target for low-income students. The Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) confirmed, in December 2001, that one in three first-time, full-time degree students are from a lower-income family (target of one in five). Fourteen per cent of undergraduate entrants are mature, first-time students from neighbourhoods where few students apply to university (target 12 per cent).
Sports facilities: good, with large indoor centre, including a swimming pool; outdoor facilities include 12 grass pitches, nine tennis courts and three netball courts.
Societies: more than 50 sports clubs and more than 100 non-sporting clubs, from the agrarian society to ballroom dancing and bridge; the Queen's film theatre is the college's full-time cinema.
