Welcome to Azad University (IR) in Oxford, the UK branch of Islamic Azad University (IR) in Iran. We are one of the world’s largest universities and we offer a wealth of facilities and resources at 350 different campuses and research centres in Iran, Dubai, Lebanon, Tanzania and here in Oxford.

Our original foundation as a small, single campus university in Tehran in 1982 came about in response to the great demand for higher education among young Iranian students during a period of rapid change and development in our country. Today we have more than 350 branches and research centres offering degree programmes at both undergraduate and graduate levels to 1.5 million students.  You will now find Islamic Azad University graduates the world over working in almost every field of science, technology and the liberal arts.

 We have achieved a great deal in a short period of time because of our fundamental belief in the value of education. The world has changed immensely since we first opened our doors 27 years ago and we now find that education works most effectively when it is international.  Indeed, we welcome students and researchers not only from Iran, but from all over the world.

That is the other key to our success: our global scope. We have built a borderless academic community that allows our students, scholars and teachers to work creatively with each other no matter where they are based. We develop our work through cooperation and collaboration with other research universities, not only in Iran, but more recently, in the UK.

We opened Azad University in Oxford (AUO) as our UK branch in July 2004 with a view to establishing academic collaboration specifically with British academia for the benefit of our students and faculty. The agreements we now have in place with our UK partner universities are structured to allow the students who come to us from all over the world to pursue PhD research in Britain. The programmes we make available to them cover a range of subjects within the arts and sciences including applied linguistics, finance, chemistry, civil and mechanical engineering, physics and IT. During their period of study students have access to the facilities of the partner university as well as the facilities and academic support available to them throughout the year at our Azad Oxford campus.

Our name Azad is the Persian word for freedom. Our logo is designed to suggest a pen, a stand with an open book and the ascent of a diligent student’s aspirations.  Iranians have a centuries long tradition of scholarship and learning teaching us that knowledge gives a person the freedom to choose. That is the purpose of our university; and that is what we hope our students will find when they come to our Oxford campus.