• TIMES2009排名: 53
• 卫报: 32
• 金融时报: 55
• UKER排名:

• 学校就业形式: 59.2
• 海外学生比例: 2.4

阿尔斯特大学是英国北爱尔兰最大最有影响的一所国立大学，下设四所校园。学校规模在全英排名第10位，有3000名教职员工，20000名学生，其中1200名硕士生，100名博士生。学校下设7个学院：艺术与设计学院、商务与管理学院、工程学院、人文学院、信息学院、自然科学学院、社会健康科学与教育学院。该校的商务与管理学院是欧洲最大规模的学院之一，有200多名教师及6000多名学生。主要专业包括工商管理，金融，经济，公共管理，法律及国际贸易等硕士课程。另外，其生物工程学科比较突出。酒店管理专业按照美国标准评定为五星级。

自然环境
该大学各主校园分布于北爱尔兰的贝尔法斯特市中心及周边地区，目前，学校正在规划建设第五个现代化校区。贝市100多年前曾是英国造船业基地，泰坦尼克号就是在此建成下水的。现在新兴的科技产业层出不穷，畜牧业也较发达。

专业设置
预科（一年）：社会科学、人文科学、信息科学、商业管理。 本科（三年）：应用艺术与设计、银行与金融、电脑商务、财会、酒店与旅游管理、公共关系、经济学、土木工程、建筑技术与管理、环境工程、交通与后勤保障、电子系统工程、电子与电脑、计算机科学、软件工程、计算机语言、数学统计与电脑、多媒体设计、生物化学工程、生物技术、商务工程、机械工程、国际贸易、传媒学、戏剧研究、食品技术管理、护理学、营养学、放射线摄影、地理学、应用心理学、传播广告与市场、社会学。

The University is organised into faculties which are broad academic groupings of related subject areas. Each faculty is organised into schools which are responsible for teaching and research in particular subject areas. The University is a unitary institution and many subject areas are offered at more than one of its campuses. Faculties and schools are not physical entities, based in one place, but are generally spread across the campuses where their courses are based.

The University of Ulster was formed from the merger of the New University of Ulster and the Ulster Polytechnic in 1984. Today, it is a large, modern university with approximately 22,500 students.

The first historic origins of the University of Ulster can be traced back to the year 1865 when Mariah Martha Magee funded the opening of Magee College in Londonderry with money left to her by her late husband. The college was primarily established for the education and training of ministers for the Presbyterian Church. However, as the college did not have a charter to award degrees, the final years of study would usually have been completed at institutions such as Trinity College, Dublin. The next significant date in the University's formation occurred in 1907 with the opening of the College of Art and Design at Belfast which formed part of the Belfast College of Technology. In 1965, the government of Northern Ireland set up a review of Higher Education in the province through the Committee of Higher Education in Northern Ireland chaired by Sir John Lockwood.

The Lockwood Commission reported that there should be a new university in Northern Ireland and as a result, the New University of Ulster, which incorporated Magee College, was opened at Coleraine in 1968. The Lockwood Commission also recommended the establishment of an Ulster College and in 1971, this opened at Jordanstown.

The Ulster College comprised of several colleges which existed in the Belfast and South Antrim area including, most importantly, the College of Art and Design. The primary role of the College was to provide courses which were essentially non-degree courses.

During the 1970's, the College became a Polytechnic and expanded rapidly. By 1984, it had approximately 5,052 full and part-time students. By contrast, the student population of the New University of Ulster had only reached 2,264 full-time and 301 part-time students by 1983, which proved to be a substantial shortfall in the Government's target of around 6,000 students by 1980.

In 1982, a Higher Education Review Group, under the Chairmanship of Sir Henry Chilver, published its report and shortly after this, the Government of Northern Ireland proposed a new institution which would subsume and replace both the New University of Ulster and the Ulster Polytechnic. This led to the opening of the University of Ulster in 1984. The resulting institution was unique in that it was the first amalgamation of two institutions from different sides of the binary line. As a result, it combined a much wider range of courses at degree and sub-degree level than those normally found in universities.

Today, research underpins teaching and learning at the University of Ulster with a large number of staff engaged in research across various disciplines. The University has a broad research profile with research ongoing in the areas of cancer, diabetes and ageing as well as across the broad spectrum of civil, mechanical and electrical engineering, software engineering and development, economics and social policy, the social sciences.
Scholarly investigation is also taking place in the fields of history, literature and the media.

The research strategy of the University serves to strengthen the research base in Northern Ireland by addressing the educational, economic, social and cultural interests of the community through the promotion of high quality basic, strategic and applied research and through the education and training of high calibre postgraduate students.

Research activity in UK universities is measured every five years through the national Research Assessment Exercise (RAE). In the most recent Research Assessment Exercise, the University of Ulster was the most improved university since the previous exercise in terms of scores gained.