The University of Sheffield is a public research university in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. It received its royal charter in 1905 as successor to the University College of Sheffield, which was established in 1897 by the merger of Sheffield Medical School (founded in 1828), Firth College (1879) and Sheffield Technical School (1884).

Sheffield is a multi-campus university predominantly over two campus areas: the Western Bank and the St.George's.The university is organised into five academic faculties composed of multiple departments. It had 19,555 undergraduate and 8,370 postgraduate students in 2015/16 and its consolidated income came to £635.7 million with £168.5 million coming from research income in 2015/16, which made Sheffield among the top 10 of the UK universities in terms of net assets.

Sheffield was placed 82nd worldwide according to QS World University Rankings and 104th worldwide according to Times Higher Education World University Rankings. In the 2014 Research Assessment Exercise, Sheffield was named as the 12th best research institution in terms of research power in the United Kingdom. In 2011, Sheffield was named 'University of the Year' in the Times Higher Education awards. The Times Higher Education Student Experience Survey 2014 ranked the University of Sheffield 1st for student experience, social life, university facilities and accommodation, among other categories.

It is one of the original red brick universities, a member of the Russell Group of research-intensive universities, the Worldwide Universities Network, the N8 Group of the eight most research intensive universities in Northern England and the White Rose University Consortium. There are six Nobel laureates amongst Sheffield academics, alumni or former staff.