The University of East Anglia is two miles from the centre of Norwich, on a parkland site close to the River Yare which was given by the city to the new university in 1960. In 1962, Denys Lasdun, who designed the National Theatre, was appointed as the University�s first architect. He drew up a master plan for the UEA site and designed many of its significant buildings, including the central square, the residential buildings known as the �ziggurats� and the main teaching block. Over the last forty years, the university has continued to commission outstanding contemporary architecture and is now one of the most architecturally distinguished campus universities in the country. It boasts buildings by, amongst others, John Miller, Rick Mather and, of course, Norman Foster.

UEA enrolled its first eighty seven undergraduates in 1963. Now, it has more than thirteen thousand students from over one hundred countries, studying subjects ranging from Environmental Sciences to Film Studies. Its world-renowned Creative Writing programme has produced prize-winning authors, including Rose Tremaine, Ian McEwan and Kazuo Ishiguro. Within the Sainsbury Centre itself are housed the School of World Art Studies and Museology and the Sainsbury Research Unit for the Arts of Oceania, Africa and the Americas. It is also possible to train in the Centre for careers in museums and galleries, through the postgraduate museology programme.

The University continues to develop further teaching and research initiatives and has recently opened a new medical school, which is closely linked to the nearby Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital. An associated bio-medical research centre is nearing completion and other new buildings will follow in the next few years.