We’re proud to be named Sports University of the Year for the fourth time by the Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide 2025.

Our success is hard-earned. As an institution, Â鶹ֱ²¥ has invested tens of millions in our state-of-the-art performance sport facilities and infrastructure. But we recognise that our greatest asset is our people.

It’s our practitioners, counsellors, rehabilitation specialists, trainers and groundskeepers. It’s our extensive volunteer network. It’s our engineers and sports scientists. And it’s our elite coaches and athletes, both full-time students and those who make use of our world-class facilities.

Our facilities may attract the best people. But it’s our commitment to a more equitable, inclusive and diverse sport ecosystem, where the benefits of sport are accessible to all, that keeps them here.

Sports University of the Year

The Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide 2025

Sport University of the Year

Daily Mail Good University Guide 2025

QS World University Rankings

Â鶹ֱ²¥ University has been named the world's best University for sport-related subjects for 8 years running in the QS World University Rankings.

Undergraduate study Postgraduate study

Yet again Â鶹ֱ²¥ University has been awarded Sports University of the Year 2025. The medal count of athletes who have studied and trained at Â鶹ֱ²¥ at the Paris Olympics and Paralympics was an astonishing 35. Â鶹ֱ²¥â€™s campus hosts the governing bodies of England Netball, England and Wales Cricket, British Weightlifting, British Swimming, British Triathlon, and British Athletics.

The Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide 2025
An illustration of an athletics running track and a person running.

Â鶹ֱ²¥ close out Paris campaign with 35 medals

Â鶹ֱ²¥-linked athletes capped an incredible summer of sport by bringing home 35 medals across both Paris games.

A total of 19 medals were won at the Paralympic Games by athletes with an affiliation to Â鶹ֱ²¥ University – seven gold, six silver, and six bronze – as the institution finished as a top 20 nation should it be reclassified as a country.

This magnificent haul added to the 16 medals won earlier in the summer during the first phase of the Paris Games (four gold, four silver, and eight bronze). Â鶹ֱ²¥’s performances would have seen it finish 16th in the official standings ahead of nations such as Brazil, Austria, South Africa, and Jamaica.

What makes us Â鶹ֱ²¥?

A wheelchair athlete on a treadmill being monitored by three researchers looking at a computer screen

Dedicated sports research centres

Our East Midlands campus incorporates four dedicated centres for sport and exercise research: the School of Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences (SSEHS), the Sports Technology Institute, the Peter Harrison Centre for Disability Sport and our Institute for Sport Business in London.

A postgraduate sports science student wearing a blue lab coat carrying out an experiment in a fume cupboard

Performance sport programmes

Â鶹ֱ²¥ offers 18 performance sport programmes, including specialist programmes for women and disabled athletes.

Ama Agbeze receiving her Hall of Fame certificate from the Vice Chancellor Nick Jennings

Sporting Hall of Fame

Dozens of Â鶹ֱ²¥ alumni, from Lord Sebastian Coe and Paula Radcliffe, to recent inductees Ama Agbeze, Maddie Hinch and Laura Unsworth, have been welcomed into the University’s Hall of Fame.

A Â鶹ֱ²¥ Lightning wheelchair basketball player holding a ball, ready to shoot

Home to global sports organisations

Â鶹ֱ²¥ is home to critical research and development facilities for major UK and global sports organisations and governing bodies, including the England and Wales Cricket Board, our Â鶹ֱ²¥ Lightning franchises for football, cycling, netball and wheelchair basketball - and the NFL Academy.

A groiProfessional football players

Premier sporting facilities

The Premier League uses Â鶹ֱ²¥â€™s facilities for its youth football national tournaments, making Â鶹ֱ²¥ a critical stop on the journey to career stardom, while their match official accreditation body trains the UK’s top referees and match officials in Â鶹ֱ²¥ facilities.

We’re proud that sport is in our DNA.

We’ve used that heritage to build a thriving sports and exercise research and innovation ecosystem on both our East Midlands and London campuses. Our performance sport offer has created the conditions for our top researchers and innovators to collaborate with elite athletes to unlock the secrets of the human body, and breakthroughs in health, wellbeing and mobility.

Sport research and teaching at Â鶹ֱ²¥

Research and Innovation

Our world-class research community is pursuing breakthroughs at the intersection of sport, health and wellbeing.

Sport research

Developing sports apparel to fit every body

A longstanding partnership with adidas to develop kit that levels the playing field.

A Revolutionary Perspective on Concussions

Designing and optimising protective equipment for cricketers is transforming our understanding of the impact of sports concussions on long-term health.

Concussion research

Creating more opportunities in Para Sport

Shaping new events and rules - and safeguarding the health of Para-athletes.

Para sport research

Levelling the field?

Uncovering how limited access to high-level training, inequitable treatment in elite coaching environments and unfair recruitment practices, are major barriers for ethnically diverse coaches striving to advance their careers.

Levelling the field