New York University, the largest independent research university in the United States, is primarily located in the heart of downtown Manhattan and Brooklyn. Beyond our campus in New York City lies a world opportunity within NYU's global network. With NYU Abu Dhabi and NYU Shanghai, our new degree-granting campuses, as well as 11 international academic centers in Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, and South America, NYU offers global experiences to all members of its community.

NYU has embarked on the project of becoming a Global Network University, a university that challenges the idea that a university can only deliver education at a single home campus. Instead, we have created a structure that allows ...

 ... students and faculty to gather in a set of key locales around the globe to forge new ideas, advance the questions we ask about the world, and create solutions for the problems that beset us all.

This Global Network University model has emerged as a natural and logical extension of NYU’s research and teaching agendas; flowing from our eco-systemic relation to New York City, the diversity of thought represented by all of our schools, colleges, and programs—and our internationally connected and collaborative faculty. Students and faculty interact with their urban environment in countless meaningful and essential ways, using these locations as a major asset.

Students and faculty alike broaden the scope of vision and knowledge through international learning. Opportunities include study abroad programs, direct-exchange programs with world-renowned institutions, and curriculum-driven international programming offered through the specific schools or departments. All locations within the network are also accessible for individual research that springs from individual academic ideas and goals.

Access to the World

NYU has never thought of itself as a gated community. It has always encouraged its students to think of themselves as participants in and shapers of a complex and changing environment. Indeed, part of NYU’s teaching mission consists in preparing students for lives in a diverse world, and faculty at NYU believe that such preparation is most effective when the outside world is not held at bay. This same principle holds true as we create a Global Network University that is both “in and of the city” and “in and of the world.”

Our locations beyond our campus in New York City include NYU Abu Dhabi, NYU Shanghai, and 10 academic sites in Accra, Ghana; Berlin, Germany, Buenos Aires, Argentina; Florence, Italy; London, England; Madrid, Spain; Paris, France; Prague, the Czech Republic; Shanghai, China; Tel Aviv, Israel; and Washington, DC.

Direct exchange programs with 12 distinguished partner institutions, 27 summer session locations, an ever-changing roster of intersession programming offered by NYU’s various schools, colleges, and programs, and curriculum-driven initiatives expand the global network—from Beijing to Johannesburg, Santiago to Vienna. 

Around the world, students work closely with faculty and with their peers on shared commitments.  They apply what they learn and develop the skills and qualities—both needed and expected in this increasingly integrated, global climate—to make a real difference in the world.