The University of Essex is a public research university in the East of England. It was granted its royal charter in 1965, having admitted its first students the previous year, and is counted among the original "plate glass" universities founded in Britain during the 1960s. Its principal campus occupies the parkland setting of Wivenhoe Park on the edge of Colchester, and the university also runs teaching sites in Southend-on-Sea and Loughton. Located in the United Kingdom, Essex is one of the country's mid-sized universities, with a student population reported at around 17,000 as of 2022.

Essex has built a longstanding reputation for the social sciences. Its Department of Government is among the most highly regarded political science departments in the UK, and the university was awarded a Regius Professorship in Political Science by Queen Elizabeth II in 2013. The institution has twice received the Queen's Anniversary Prize, recognising its work on human rights in 2009 and on social and economic research in 2017. Alongside the social sciences, the university sustains research and teaching across the humanities, natural sciences, and health, organised into a range of faculties and departments.

The university's academic community is complemented by an extensive network of international collaborations, reported across more than one hundred higher education institutions worldwide. Essex hosts influential research bodies and data archives in the social and economic sciences, reinforcing its standing in empirical and quantitative research. Its alumni and academic staff include Nobel laureates and prominent public figures. Together, its campus-based community, emphasis on research with social impact, and particular strength in the study of government, sociology, and economics define the institution's identity within UK higher education.