The  University of California, Irvine  (UCI, UC Irvine, or Irvine), is a public research university located in Irvine, California, and one of the 10 general campuses in the University of California (UC) system. UC Irvine is considered a Public Ivy and offers 80 undergraduate degrees and 98 graduate and professional degrees. The university is designated as having very high research activity in the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, and in fiscal year 2013 had $348 million in research and development expenditures according to the National Science Foundation. UC Irvine became a member of the Association of American Universities in 1996, and is the youngest university to hold membership. The university also administers the UC Irvine Medical Centre, a large teaching hospital in Orange, and its affiliated health sciences system; the University of California, Irvine, Arboretum; and a portion of the University of California Natural Reserve System.

UCI was one of three new UC campuses established in the 1960s to accommodate growing enrolments across the UC system. A site in Orange County was identified in 1959, and in the following year the Irvine Company sold the University of California 1,000 acres (400 ha) of land for one dollar to establish the new campus. President Lyndon B. Johnson dedicated the campus in 1964. Fifty years later President Barack Obama spoke at UCI’s 2014 commencement ceremony, held at Angel Stadium.

The UC Irvine Anteaters compete in 18 men’s and women’s sports in the NCAA Division I as members of the Big West Conference and the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation. The Anteaters have won 28 national championships in nine different team sports, 64 Anteaters have won individual national championships, and 53 Anteaters have competed in the Olympics.

UC Irvine’s academic units are referred to as Schools. As of the 2013-2014 school year, there are twelve Schools, two Programs, one Department, and various interdisciplinary programs. The College of Health Sciences was established in 2004, but no longer exists as a separate academic unit. On November 16, 2006, the UC Regents approved the establishment of the School of Law, with an expected opening in fall 2009. The School of Education was established by the Regents of the University of California in 2012. Supplementary education programs offer accelerated or community education in the form of Summer Session and UC
Irvine Extension.

To complement its mission as a research university, UCI hosts a diverse array of nationally and internationally recognized research organizations. These organizations are either chaired by or composed of UCI faculty, frequently draw upon undergraduates and graduates for research assistance, and produce a multitude of innovations, patents, and scholarly works. Some are housed in a school or department office; others are housed in their own multimillion-dollar facilities.

UC Irvine is considered a Public Ivy. Money Magazine ranked UC Irvine 13th in the country (and 3rd among public colleges) out of the nearly 1500 schools it evaluated for its 2015 Best Colleges ranking. For 2015-2016, U.S. News & World Report ranked UC Irvine tied for 39th among national universities and tied for 9th among public universities in the U.S.

As of 2011, UCI has more than 124,000 alumni. As with any large university, many UC Irvine alumni have achieved fame after graduating. These people include athletes (Steve Scott, Scott Brooks, Greg Louganis and 34 Olympians), Broadway, film, and television actors (Bob Gunton, James LeGros, Jon Lovitz, Brian Thompson, Teal Wicks, and Windell Middlebrooks), international concert pianist and arts entrepreneur Kevin Kwan Loucks, astronaut Tracy Caldwell Dyson, and technological innovators (Roy Fielding, Paul Mockapetris, and Patrick J. Hanratty.