University of California, Irvine
public research university in Irvine, California, United States
The University of California, Irvine (UCI or UC Irvine) is a public land-grant research university in Irvine, California, United States. One of the ten campuses of the University of California system, UCI offers 87 undergraduate degrees and 129 graduate and professional degrees, and roughly 30,000 undergraduates and 7,000 graduate students were enrolled at UCI as of Fall 2024. The university is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity" and had $609.6 million in research and development expenditures in 2023, ranking it 56th nationally. UCI became a member of the Association of American Universities in 1996.
The university administers the UC Irvine Medical Center, 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. UC Irvine set up the first Earth System Science Department in the United States.
The UC Irvine Anteaters currently compete in the NCAA Division I as members of the Big West Conference.
As of 2026, alumni, academics, and affiliates of UCI include 5 Nobel Prize laureates, 7 Pulitzer Prize winners, and a Dan David Prize winner.
History
Early years
The University of California, Irvine (with San Diego and Santa Cruz) was one of three new University of California campuses established in the 1960s under the California Master Plan for Higher Education. During the 1950s, the University of California saw the need for the new campuses to handle the expected increase in enrollment from the post-war baby boom.
“University of California, Irvine” enters the record as public research university in Irvine, California, United States. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what University, California and Irvine can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“University of California, Irvine” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, University, California and Irvine provides the most credible route into that argument.
The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q868421. VIAF identifies the subject as 144122723. The Library of Congress control number is n79078362. Authority coordinates are 33.645, -117.843. 4 of 6 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2024, 2023, 1996 and 2026.
Later summaries often reconcile disputed chronology or motive more neatly than the contemporary record permits. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.
- Event chronology
- Institutional context
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Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “University of California, Irvine”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow University of California, Irvine primary sources, University of California, Irvine archive and University research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “University of California, Irvine”?
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- What chronology connects this entry to wider political or social change?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “University of California, Irvine” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.