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The University of California, Irvine (UCI or UC Irvine) is a public land-grant research university in Irvine, California, United States. One of the ten campuses of the University of California system, UCI offers 87 undergraduate degrees and 129 graduate and professional degrees, and roughly 30,000 undergraduates and 7,000 graduate students were enrolled at UCI as of Fall 2024. The university is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity" and had $609.6 million in research and development expenditures in 2023, ranking it 56th nationally. UCI became a member of the Association of American Universities in 1996.

The university administers the UC Irvine Medical Center, a large teaching hospital in Orange, and its affiliated health sciences system; the University of California, Irvine, Arboretum; and a portion of the University of California Natural Reserve System. UC Irvine set up the first Earth System Science Department in the United States.

The UC Irvine Anteaters currently compete in the NCAA Division I as members of the Big West Conference.

As of 2026, alumni, academics, and affiliates of UCI include 5 Nobel Prize laureates, 7 Pulitzer Prize winners, and a Dan David Prize winner.

History

Early years

The University of California, Irvine (with San Diego and Santa Cruz) was one of three new University of California campuses established in the 1960s under the California Master Plan for Higher Education. During the 1950s, the University of California saw the need for the new campuses to handle the expected increase in enrollment from the post-war baby boom. One of the new campuses was to be in the Los Angeles area; the location selected was Irvine Ranch, an area of agricultural land bisecting Orange County from north to south. This site was chosen to accommodate the county's growing population, complement the growth of nearby UCLA and UC Riverside, and allow for the construction of a master planned community in the surrounding area.

On June 20, 1964, U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson dedicated UC Irvine before a crowd of 15,000 people, and on October 4, 1965, the campus began operations with 1,589 students, 241 staff members, 119 faculty, and 43 teaching assistants. However, many of UCI's buildings were still under construction, and landscaping was still in progress, with the campus only at 75% completion. By June 25, 1966, UCI held its first Commencement with fourteen students, which conferred ten Bachelor of Arts degrees, three Master of Arts degrees, and one Doctor of Philosophy degree.

Development

Unlike most other University of California campuses, UCI was not named for the city it was built in; at the time of the university's founding (1965), the current city of Irvine (incorporated in 1971) did not exist. The name "Irvine" is a reference to James Irvine, a landowner who administered the 94,000-acre (38,000 ha) Irvine Ranch. In 1960, The Irvine Company sold 1,000 acres (400 ha) of the Irvine Ranch to the University of California for one dollar, since company policy prohibited the donation of property to a public entity. On campus, UC Irvine's first Chancellor, Daniel G. Aldrich selected a wide variety of Mediterranean-climate flora and fauna, feeling that it served an "aesthetic, environmental, and educational [purpose]." To plan the remainder of the ranch, the university hired William Pereira and Associates. Pereira intended for the UC Irvine campus to complement the neighboring community, and it became clear that the original 1,000-acre (400 ha) grant would not suffice. In 1964, the university purchased an additional 510 acres (210 ha) in 1964 for housing and commercial developments.

Much of the land that was not purchased by UCI (which is now occupied by the cities of Irvine, Tustin, and Newport Beach) remains held by The Irvine Company, but the completion of the university rapidly drove the development of Orange County. The City of Irvine became incorporated and established in 1971 and 1975, respectively. UCI remains the second-largest employer in Orange County, employing 34,076 people as of Fall 2024 and generating an estimated $8 billion in annual economic impact in California.

Campus

The layout of the core campus resembles a rough circle with its center being Aldrich Park (initially known as Campus Park), lined up by the Ring Mall and buildings surrounding the road. Academic units are positioned relative to the center, wherein undergraduate schools are closer to the center than the graduate schools.

Aldrich Park forms part of a campus-wide urban forest of approximately 30,000 trees.

Two ceremonial trees were planted in 1990, one for Arbor Day and the second for former chancellor Daniel Aldrich who had died that year. On the first anniversary of the September 11th tragedies, the chancellor planted a bay laurel tree in remembrance of the heroes and victims of the events of September 11, 2001. The tree itself was a gift from the UCI Staff Assembly. Reforestation and landscape revitalization efforts have shifted plantings away from earlier stands of fast-growing eucalyptus toward more native and ecologically suitable California species. The park is also reported to contain approximately 51 varieties of trees and is regarded as the first park in the City of Irvine.

Surroundings

While the university is located in Irvine, the campus is directly bounded by the city of Newport Beach and the community of Newport Coast. The western side of the campus borders the San Diego Creek and the San Joaquin Freshwater Marsh Reserve, through which Campus Drive connects UCI to the 405 freeway. The northern and eastern sides of UCI are adjacent to Irvine proper; the eastern side of the campus is delineated by Bonita Canyon Road, which turns into Culver Drive at its northern terminus. California State Route 73 marks UCI's southern boundary and separates the campus from Newport Beach.

The "North Campus" houses the Facilities Management Department, the Faculty Research Facility, Central Receiving, Fleet Services, the Air Pollution Health Effects Laboratory, and the 1.2 million square foot Irvine Campus Medical Complex (ICMC). It is located next to the UCI Arboretum, a 12.5 acre botanic garden and research facility which maintains major plant collections from the California Floristic Province and South Africa. The Arboretum is closed until further notice due to the COVID-19 pandemic with plans to relocate to the main campus. Both the North Campus and the arboretum are located about 1 mile (2 km) from the main campus. The UCI Ecological Preserve, located on the southern edge of the main campus, comprises approximately 60 acres of coastal sage scrub and grassland habitat. It is managed as part of the Nature Reserve of Orange County and is used for field instruction and ecological research. In 2024, construction of the Joe C. Wen & Family UCI Health Center for Advanced Care and the Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center was completed. In late 2025, an all-electric 144-bed acute care hospital will follow suit, making this the nation’s first medical center to be powered by an all-electric central utilities plant.

Washington Center

The University of California, Irvine, is one of nine UC undergraduate campuses that sends students to the University of California, Washington DC (UCDC) program. This is a UC systemwide program housed in the University of California Washington Center, located on Scott Circle in Downtown Washington (

38°54′23.4″N 77°2′14″W). The center serves as the headquarters of the University of California Office of Federal Governmental Relations and supports UC students interning in the District of Columbia. UC Washington Center is currently led by UC Merced sociology professor, Tanya Golash-Boza.

Governance

Like other University of California campuses, UC Irvine operates under a system of shared governance, or a partnership between the Chancellor and his administration and the faculty through the Academic Senate. The Chancellor is the chief campus officer and has authority over the campus budget. The Academic Senate has authority to determine the conditions for admission and supervise courses and curricula. The Chancellor is nominated by and is responsible to the Regents of the University of California and the UC President.

After the Chancellor, the second most senior official is the Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost, the university's chief academic and operating officer. Every school on campus reports to the Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost through a Dean, and all other academic and administrative units report to this office through a Vice Chancellor or chief administrator. A partial list of these units includes Campus Recreation, Intercollegiate Athletics, Planning and Budget, Student Affairs, UC Irvine Libraries, UC Irvine Medical Center, and University Advancement.

Academics

Academic units

UC Irvine's academic units are referred to as schools. As of the 2023–2024 school year, there were fifteen schools and several interdisciplinary programs. The College of Health Sciences was established in 2004, but no longer exists as a separate academic unit. On November 16, 2006, the University of California Regents approved the establishment of the School of Law. The School of Education was established by the UC Regents in 2012. In 2016, the university announced that it had received a $40 million donation from Bill Gross' philanthropic foundation to turn its nursing science program into the Sue and Bill Gross School of Nursing. The UC Regents formally approved the establishment of the school in January 2017. In July 2020, the UC Regents approved the establishment of the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences. In July 2024, UCI received a gift of $50 million to support the transition of the former Program in Public Health to the Joe C. Wen School of Population and Public Health, named for the donor and his family. Supplementary education programs offer accelerated or community education in the form of Summer Session and UC Irvine Extension.

The academic units consist of (with their founding in parentheses):

• Claire Trevor School of the Arts (1970)
• Charlie Dunlop School of Biological Sciences (1965)
• Paul Merage School of Business (1965)
• School of Education (1967)
• Henry Samueli School of Engineering (1965)
• School of Humanities (1965)
• Donald Bren School of Information & Computer Sciences (2002)
• Interdisciplinary Studies (1992)
• School of Law (2007)
• School of Physical Sciences (1965)
• School of Social Ecology (1970)
• School of Social Sciences (1965)
• School of Medicine (1896)
• Sue & Bill Gross School of Nursing (2007)
• School of Pharmacy & Pharmaceutical Sciences (2020)
• Joe C. Wen School of Population and Public Health (2024)

Health care

The School of Medicine constitutes the professional schools of health science. The UC Irvine Medical Center is ranked among the nation's top 50 hospitals by U.S. News & World Report for the 12th consecutive year. The school has 19 clinical and 6 basic science departments with 560 full-time and 1,300 volunteer faculty members involved in teaching, patient care, and medical and basic science research. With an acceptance rate of 3.98% for 6,929 applicants in 2025, it is among the nation's 20 most selective medical schools.

Research organizations

UCI's many research organizations are either chaired by or composed of UCI faculty, frequently draw upon undergraduates and graduates for research assistance, and produce innovations, patents, and scholarly works. Some are housed in a school or department office; others are housed in their own facilities. These are a few of the research organizations at UCI:

Discoveries and innovation

Machine Learning Repository

The University of California Irvine hosts the UCI Machine Learning Repository, a data resource which is very popular among machine learning researchers and data mining practitioners. It was created in 1987 and contains 682 datasets as of October 2025 from several domains including biology, medicine, physics, engineering, social sciences, games, and others. The datasets contained in the UC Irvine Machine Learning Repository have been used by thousands of students and researchers in the computer science community and facilitated the publication of approximately 26 thousand scientific articles.

Student life

Fraternities and sororities

The first fraternities and sororities at UCI began in 1973 with three sororities and three fraternities.

Clubs and organizations

There are around 600 student clubs and organizations on campus. Campus activities throughout the year include cultural nights, arts performances, and live music at Anteater Plaza. Special events such as Aldrich Park After Dark, Summerlands, Soulstice, and Earth Day are held yearly. ASUCI, the university's undergraduate student government, traditionally organizes a world record attempt by the university at the beginning of each academic year. UCI has won Guinness World Records for the largest game of capture the flag six times, with the most recent one in September 2015. In addition, the university has broken the record for the largest game of dodgeball three years straight. They have also won records for largest water pistol fight and largest pillow fight.

On campus housing

As of 2024, UCI houses approximately 17,878 students or about 50% of the campus enrollment.

Middle Earth

Middle Earth is a student housing complex that includes housing approximately 1,784 first-year students in 24 "classics" residence halls, and another 640 in two five-level "towers", a student center (Pippin Center), dining facility (Brandywine) and several resource centers. Each hall houses 48–96 students, although Quenya was built with sixty single-suite rooms originally intended for graduate students. The names of the halls and other facilities were selected from J.R.R. Tolkien's legendarium.

Middle Earth is located along Ring Road, toward the core of the university's campus. The residence halls were built in three consecutive phases, beginning in 1974. The first phase was designed by William Pereira. The first phase included seven halls: Hobbiton, Isengard, Lorien, Mirkwood, Misty Mountain, Rivendell, and the Shire, along with a separate Head Resident's manufactured home called "Bag End". The second phase was built in 1989 with thirteen more halls: Balin, Harrowdale, Whispering Wood, Woodhall, Calmindon, Grey Havens, Aldor, Rohan, Gondolin, Snowbourn, Elrond, Shadowfax, and Quenya. The third phase was built in 2000 with four halls: Crickhollow, Evenstar, Oakenshield, and Valimar. The last phase was completed in the summer of 2019 and officially opened September 16, 2019; although reported in the media as being called the two towers of Middle Earth, its two buildings are actually named Telperion and Laurelin, after the Two Trees of Valinor. These towers house around 640 undergraduate students.

Mesa Court

Mesa Court is another housing community intended for freshman as part of the "First Year Experience". It houses around 3,484 students in 29 "classics" halls and four residential towers. The towers themselves accommodate 1,440 students and include study areas, computer labs, a fitness center, with shared kitchenettes and laundry facilities. Situated below "Caballo", one of the towers, is the other major dining facility on campus (The Anteatery) which can serve 780 students at maximum. The most recent addition, Oso Tower, was completed in 2025 and began accommodating around 400 residents for the 2025-26 school year.

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