University of Edinburgh

The University of Edinburgh (abbreviated as Edin. in post-nominals), founded in 1582, is the sixth oldest university in the English-speaking world and one of Scotland's ancient universities. The university is deeply embedded in the fabric of the city of Edinburgh, with many of the buildings in the historic Old Town belonging to the university.

The University of Edinburgh is ranked 17th in the world by the 2013–14 and 2014–15 QS rankings. The Research Excellence Framework, a research ranking used by the UK government to determine future research funding, ranked Edinburgh 4th in the UK for research power, with Computer Science and Informatics ranking 1st in the UK. It is ranked 16th in the world in arts and humanities by the 2015–16 Times Higher Education Ranking. It is ranked the 23rd most employable university in the world by the 2015 Global Employability University Ranking. It is ranked as the 6th best university in Europe by the U.S. News' Best Global Universities Ranking. It is a member of both the Russell Group, and the League of European Research Universities, a consortium of 21 research universities in Europe. It has the third largest endowment of any university in the United Kingdom, after the universities of Cambridge and Oxford.

Edinburgh

Edinburgh (ⁱ/ˈɛdɪnbərə/;Scottish Gaelic: Dùn Èideann [ˈt̪uːn ˈɛːtʲɛn̪ˠ]) is the capital city of Scotland, located in Lothian on the southern shore of the Firth of Forth. It is the second most populous city in Scotland and the seventh most populous in the United Kingdom. The most recent official population estimates are 464,990 for the city of Edinburgh itself and 492,680 for the local authority area. Edinburgh lies at the heart of the Edinburgh & South East Scotland City region with a population in 2014 of 1,339,380. Recognised as the capital of Scotland since at least the 15th century, Edinburgh is home to the Scottish Parliament and the seat of the monarchy in Scotland. The city is also the annual venue of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland and home to national institutions such as the National Museum of Scotland, the National Library of Scotland and the Scottish National Gallery. It is the largest financial centre in the UK after London.

University press

A university press is an academic publishing house specializing in academic monographs and scholarly journals. Most are nonprofit and an integral component of a large research university. They publish work that has been reviewed by scholars in the field. They produce mainly scholarly works, but also often have "popular" titles, such as books on religion or on regional topics. Because scholarly books are mostly unprofitable, university presses may also publish textbooks and reference works, which tend to have larger audiences and sell more copies. Most university presses operate at a loss and are subsidized by their owners; others are required to break even. Demand has fallen as library budgets are cut and the online sales of used books undercut the new book market. Many presses are experimenting with electronic publishing.

History

Oxford University Press and Cambridge University Press are the two oldest and largest university presses in the world. They have scores of branches around the world, especially throughout the British Commonwealth.