University of Edinburgh

Founded 1583. Scottish Enlightenment hub, Darwin and Higgs studied here, Dolly the sheep cloned nearby.

Overview

Founded by the town council with a royal charter, Edinburgh became the Enlightenment's Athens north of the border. David Hume and Adam Smith orbited its classes, Charles Darwin abandoned medicine here, and Peter Higgs decades later predicted his boson while on faculty. The Roslin Institute cloned Dolly the sheep in 1996. Arthur Conan Doyle trained in medicine between football saves in goal. The old college on South Bridge and the informatics forum span five centuries of building. Edinburgh enrolls over 45,000 students from 150-plus countries.