The University of Bedfordshire is a public research university with campuses in Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire, England. The university has roots in further and higher education from 1882: it gained university status in 1993 as the University of Luton. The university changed its name to the University of Bedfordshire in 2006, following the merger of the University of Luton with the Bedford campus of De Montfort University.
It is spread across five campuses: there are three in Bedfordshire, in Bedford and Luton; and two in Buckinghamshire, in Aylesbury (for students studying Nursing and Midwifery), and in Milton Keynes. It is also active in London and Birmingham, as well as globally, with a growing portfolio of international partnerships as far afield as Trinidad and Tobago, Egypt, Vietnam, Oman and Mauritius.
The university entered the Research Assessment Exercise in 2014 and achieved an improvement of 22 places in the REF Power Ranking – the fourth largest improvement in the sector with nearly half of its research considered to be world leading or internationally excellent.
In 2012, it achieved FairTrade status. The university has also come eighth in the UK in the People and Planet University Green League in 2019 and received the Eco Campus Platinum award in 2020.
The University of Bedfordshire has around 20,000 students from over 100 countries, with around 40 academic partners, both in the UK and overseas, to deliver a range of course from foundation degrees to doctorates. More than 40% of its student population come from families with no history of participation in higher education. Around 70% are mature returners to education and over half are from black or ethnic minority backgrounds.
Appointed in 2020, the current Vice Chancellor is Rebecca Bunting. On 27 August 2025, she announced in an email to staff that she would be retiring in December 2025. The current Chancellor of the University of Bedfordshire is Sarfraz Manzoor, who was appointed in 2023.
