University of Mumbai

History

In accordance with "Wood's despatch", drafted by Sir Charles Wood in 1854, The University of Bombay was established in 1857 after presentation of a petition from the Bombay Association to the British colonial government in India. The University of Mumbai was modeled on similar universities in the United Kingdom, specifically the University of London.

The first departments established were the Faculty of Arts at Elphinstone College in 1835 and the Faculty of Medicine at Grant Medical College in 1845. Both colleges existed before the university was founded and surrendered their degree-granting privileges to the university. The first degrees awarded in 1862 were Bachelor of Arts and Licentiate in Medicine.

Initially, the Town Hall in Mumbai was used as the university's offices.

Until 1904, the university only conducted examinations, awarded affiliations to colleges, developed curricula and produced guidelines for colleges developing curricula. Teaching departments, research disciplines and post-graduate courses were introduced from 1904 and several additional departments were established. After India achieved independence in 1947, the functions and powers of the university were re-organised under The Bombay University Act of 1953. The name of the University was changed from University of Bombay to University of Mumbai in 1996.

In 1949, student enrolment was 42,272 with 80 affiliated colleges. By 1975, these numbers had grown to 156,190 and 114 respectively.

Kalina Campus

The Kalina campus in suburban Mumbai covers an area of 93 hectares (230 acres) and houses graduate training and research centres. Departments offering courses in the sciences, technology, commerce, and humanities are located here. Most colleges of engineering and medicine affiliated to the University of Mumbai, though, are privately owned. The university does not have its own engineering or medicine departments.

Centres and institutes located in the Kalina Campus include;

Thane Campus

The Thane Campus, established in 2014, spans an area of 2.4 ha (6 acres) and is a modern, 2-storey complex. It houses administrative offices, the School of Law, University of Mumbai and also undertakes management courses.

Fort Campus

The University of Bombay was established in 1857 at the Fort campus, which is located near the southern end of Mumbai. It houses the administrative division of the university on a 5.3 ha (13 acres) site. It has 116,000 m² (1.25×10^⁶ sq ft) of built-up area, 2,000 m² (22,000 sq ft) of classrooms, and 7,800 m² (84,000 sq ft) of laboratory space. There are 2 post-graduate centres, 354 affiliated colleges, and 36 departments. It is built in the Gothic style and the Rajabai Clock Tower stands on the lawns of the campus.

Rajabai Clock Tower

One of Mumbai's landmarks, the Rajabai Clock Tower was completed in the 1870s and houses the University of Mumbai's library. Sir George Gilbert Scott modeled the Rajabai Clock Tower on the clock tower of the Palace of Westminster in London. Local businessman Premchand Roychand contributed to the cost of construction and named the tower in memory of his mother, Rajabai. The tower is 85 m (280 ft) tall and has five storeys. At a height of 9.1 m (30 ft) from the ground, there are eight statues representing the Indian castes. The tower clock is reported to have played 16 tunes including Rule, Britannia. On the initiative of the then Vice-Chancellor, Dr. Rajan Welukar, the first phase of restoration of Rajabai Clock Tower started in 2013 and was completed in May 2015. Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) gave a Rs 4 crore grant for this phase of the restoration project.

Ratnagiri Campus

This minor campus, running mostly extramural courses, is located in the town of Ratnagiri.

Prominent institutes

Several departments of the University of Mumbai are located away from the three Mumbai campuses. These include the departments of Medicine and Medical Research located in several prominent hospitals in Mumbai, such as the Tata Memorial Hospital, Bombay Hospital and G.S. Medical College and King Edward Memorial Hospital. The Institute of Chemical Technology, then known as the UDCT, was originally an institution of MU, but later gained university status. Tata Memorial Hospital is now affiliated to the Homi Bhabha National Institute.

Similarly, Veermata Jijabai Technological Institute was the first Engineering Institute in the University of Mumbai (1887) and Thadomal Shahani Engineering College was the first Engineering college in the University of Mumbai to start courses in Computer Engineering, Information Technology, Electronics Engineering and Biomedical Engineering. Sardar Patel College of Engineering is another reputed engineering college affiliated to the University .

In the School of Law, the Government Law College, Mumbai remains the most prominent institute since the university's inception.

The Institute of Chemical Technology was ranked 4th in the world for research in Chemical Engineering by professor Jude Sommerfeld of Georgia Institute of Technology, United States in 2014 for a 5-year period. It was a university department until it achieved university status.

The Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies is consistently ranked among the top 10 management institutes of India and was established in the year 1965 in collaboration with Stanford Graduate School of Business of Stanford University.

Jawaharlal Nehru Library

Jawaharlal Nehru Library (JNL) is the central library, located on the campus at Kalina.

The technology and applied research journals and books of the University of Mumbai are kept in the libraries of the Institute of Chemical Technology, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies and Tata Memorial Hospital.

Faculties and departments

The University of Mumbai has several hundred affiliated colleges offering undergraduate and post-graduate education, and conducting research in areas of science, commerce, arts, engineering, management, law, etc. Each college has its own campus and specialized departments/centres.

Areas of education and research are summarized in the table below:

Vice-Chancellors

Partner universities

Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) have been signed with University of Amsterdam, University of Bath, Liverpool Hope University, Ryerson University, IESEG School of Management, Kühne Logistics University, Tianjin University of Technology, Nankai University in China and Edith Cowan University in Australia.