Whiteknights Park in the context of Halls of residence

The University of Reading is a public research university in Reading, Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1892 as the University Extension College, Reading, an extension college of Christ Church, Oxford, and became University College, Reading in 1902. The institution became a university with the power to grant its own degrees in 1926 by royal charter from King George V, and was the only university to receive such a charter between the two world wars. The university is usually categorised as a red brick university, reflecting its original foundation in the 19th century.

Reading has four major campuses. In the United Kingdom, the campuses on London Road and Whiteknights are based in the town of Reading itself, and Greenlands is based on the banks of the River Thames in Buckinghamshire. It also has a campus in Iskandar Puteri, Malaysia. The university has been arranged into 16 academic schools since 2016. The annual income of the institution for 2024–25 was £347.8 million of which £33.9 million was from research grants and contracts, with an expenditure of £366.1 million.

A university museum is a repository of collections run by a university, typically founded to aid teaching and research within the institution of higher learning. The Ashmolean Museum at the University of Oxford in England is an early example, originally housed in the building that is now the Museum of the History of Science. A more recent example is the Holburne Museum of Art in Bath, established in 1882, which is now the official museum of the University of Bath.

The Ure Museum of Greek Archaeology is a museum of ancient Mediterranean archaeology, primarily that of ancient Greek civilisation but with smaller collections of Egyptian, Etruscan and Roman items. It contains one of the most important collections of ancient Greek pottery in the United Kingdom. The museum is part of the University of Reading's University Museums and Special Collections Services (UMASCS), and is located in and works closely with the university's Department of Classics. The museum is situated on the university's Whiteknights Campus, about 2 miles (3.2 km) from the centre of the English town of Reading, Berkshire. The museum is open to the public and entry is free.

London Road Campus of the University of Reading is the original campus of that university. It is on the London Road, immediately to the south of Reading town centre in the English county of Berkshire.

The site for the campus was given to the university in 1904 by the Palmer family, owners of Reading's Huntley & Palmers biscuit makers. It served as the university's main site until after the much larger Whiteknights Campus was acquired in 1947.