The Royal Agricultural University celebrates turning 180 with a whole year of events!

11 March 2025

The Royal Agricultural University (RAU) - the first agricultural college in the English-speaking world which was established in 1845 and has been at the forefront of agricultural education, research, and innovation ever since – is celebrating its 180th anniversary this year.

Originally established as the Royal Agricultural College with just 25 students, the institution became a university in 2013 and now has more than 1,100 students studying subjects from agriculture, land management, and equine science, to business and entrepreneurship, and cultural heritage, at its Cirencester campus as well as more than 3,000 studying worldwide with its many international partners.

To celebrate this milestone, the University has a calendar of events taking place throughout the year including a special 180th anniversary public lecture series, the unveiling of a new sculpture made especially for the institution’s 180th year, and the opening of the University’s new £5.8m land laboratories, as well as a Community Open Day and a global online party for the University to celebrate with its international partners.

Professor Peter McCaffery, who became Vice-Chancellor of the RAU in 2021, said: “As we celebrate our 180th anniversary this year, we can reflect that our University – the very first agricultural college in the English-speaking world – is as relevant today as it always has been.

“Founded in 1845 to help meet a national emergency – how to feed the country at a time of burgeoning urbanisation and industrialisation – we are immensely proud of the contribution our world-wide family of 17,000+ alumni have made as leaders, entrepreneurs and innovators in agriculture and the land-based sector.”

“Today we seek to equip a new generation of graduates to help address the global challenges that face us – climate change, food security, sustainable land use, biodiversity loss and heritage management.”

Other ‘business as usual’ events taking place this year - including the RAU’s annual Bledisloe Lecture taking place in May, the Friends of the RAU lunch in July, the Graduation and Matriculation ceremonies in September, and the Remembrance Service and Christmas Carol Service later in the year - will also have special significance as the University celebrates its 180th anniversary.

RAU alumnus Will Carr, who left the University in 2015 with a Graduate Diploma in Agriculture and works as a self-taught sculptor alongside running his family farm in Hereford, has been commissioned to make a special sculpture for the special anniversary.

This new sculpture – a ram’s head, made from old metal plough and machinery parts, to resemble the two rams in the RAU’s logo - will be unveiled later in the year and will join the existing barley sculpture, which Will made for the University’s 170th anniversary in 2015, on the Bathurst Lawn at the University’s historic Cirencester campus.

Professor McCaffery added: “Building on our historic purpose – to care for the land and all who depend on it – we are now driving new frontiers as the leading specialist university in England for research, ‘top-of-the-class’ in our cluster of STEM universities for knowledge exchange, and sponsor of our £140M Innovation Village project to develop sustainable solutions for food production that will be ‘a first for the UK’.

“The RAU is also an exemplar of best practice in Trans-National Education, as recognised by UKRI and the British Council, and, in just the last three years, we have co-founded two brand-new universities – the International Agricultural University in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, and the University of Al Dhaid in Sharjah, UAE.

“Our influence and impact continue to be felt locally, nationally, and globally, and we fully intend to continue to punch above our weight in the future as we have done for the past 180 years.”

For more details of the 180th anniversary events, and to book a place at one of the 180th anniversary public lectures, please visit https://www.rau.ac.uk/about-rau/why-rau/180-years.