University of Malaya

The Universiti Malaya (lit 'University of Malaya'; abbreviated UM) is a public research university located in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It is the oldest Malaysian institution of higher education, and was the only university in newly independent Malaya. The university has graduated five prime ministers of Malaysia, and other political, business, and cultural figures of national prominence.

The predecessor of the university, King Edward VII College of Medicine, was established on 28 September 1905 in Singapore, then a territory of the British Empire. In October 1949, the merger of the King Edward VII College of Medicine and Raffles College created the university. Rapid growth during its first decade caused the university to organize as two autonomous divisions on 15 January 1959, one located in Singapore and the other in Kuala Lumpur. In 1960, the governments of Malaya and Singapore indicated that these two divisions should become autonomous and separate national universities. One branch was located in Singapore, becoming the University of Singapore (merging into the National University of Singapore in 1980) after the independence of Singapore from Malaysia, and the other branch was located in Kuala Lumpur, retaining the name Universiti Malaya. Legislation was passed in 1961 and the Universiti Malaya was established on 1 January 1962. In 2012, UM was granted autonomy by the Ministry of Higher Education. The university also collaborated with the University of Wales in 2013 to establish International University of Malaya-Wales (IUMW), a private university in Malaysia.

Today, UM has more than 2,300 faculty members and is divided into fourteen faculties, two academies, three institutes and two academic centres.