The University of Nottingham is a public research university in the city of Nottingham, England, with further campuses in Ningbo, China and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The university was founded in 1881, and is a member of the Russell Group, the Sutton Trust 13, Universitas 21, the Association of Commonwealth Universities, and the European University Association. The university is ranked in the UK's Top 10 and the World's Top 100 universities by the Shanghai Jiao Tong (SJTU) and Times Higher (THE) World University Rankings, and the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) found 60 per cent of Nottingham's research to be "world-leading" or "internationally excellent"[9]. With over 40,000 applications every year, the university is one of the top 5 most popular universities in the UK, and has been described by the Times as Britain's "only truly global university" and a "prime alternative to Oxbridge".[10]