The School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), a University of London college, is the only Higher Education institution in the UK specialising in the study of Asia, Africa and the Near and Middle East.

SOAS has the largest concentration in Europe of academic staff concerned with Africa, Asia and the Middle East, combining language scholarship, disciplinary expertise and regional focus.

SOAS remains a guardian of specialised knowledge in languages and periods and regions not available anywhere else in the UK. SOAS scholars deal with the pressing issues - democracy, development, religion, identity, human rights, legal systems, poverty, social change - confronting two-thirds of humankind.

The School of Oriental and African Studies is a global academic base and a crucial resource for London. SOAS is distinctively positioned to analyse, understand and explain this world of shrinking borders and of economic and technological simultaneity. A world in which difference and regionalism present themselves acutely.

SOAS jumped 15 places in 2008 up to "ninth best university nationwide" in The Good University Guide, which also ranked the school fourth in London. SOAS also moved three places up to eighth in The Guardian newspaper's league tables of top UK universities.

The academic focus at SOAS on the languages, cultures and societies of Africa, Asia and the Middle East making the school an indispensable interpreter in a complex world.

More facts about SOAS:

• There are more than 4,600 students attending SOAS from 130+ countries, and 45% of them are from outside the UK.
• Just over half of SOAS students are studying for undergraduate degrees, and 26% of them are aged 21 or over at the start of their course.
• More than 350 degree combinations are available in social sciences, arts, humanities and languages, all with a distinctive regional focus.
• SOAS offers an unmatched range of non-European languages, all of which may be studied without prior knowledge.
• More than a quarter of the degree programmes at SOAS offer study-abroad opportunities to spend a year studying in another country.
• SOAS has the largest concentration of specialist staff (300+ academics) concerned with the study of Africa, Asia and the Middle East than at any university in the world.
• The student-staff ratio at SOAS (11:1) is one of the best in the UK.
• SOAS offers about 100 postgraduate programmes (both taught and distance learning) in social sciences, humanities and languages with a distinctive regional focus and global relevance.
• SOAS is one of the top research universities in the country, according to the 2008 independent assessment of the quality of research activities in UK universities (the RAE.)
• All departments at SOAS assessed in Teaching Quality Audits in recent years have been awarded maximum or near-maximum ratings.
• More than 1.2 million items and extensive electronic resources for the study of Africa, Asia and the Middle East are available in The SOAS Library, and attracts scholars from all over the world.