Durham University

in the Arqus European University Alliance, part of the European Union's European Universities initiative, and is part of bilateral groups including the UK-Japan RENKEI network, the UK-Norway North Sea University Partnership, and the UK-Saudi Arabia Joint International Institute for Clean Hydrogen, and other international research consortia including the Virgo Consortium and the University of the Arctic. It is also part of regional groups including the N8 Research Partnership of universities in the north of England; Universities for North East England, bringing together the five universities in north east England; the Northern Accelerator knowledge exchange and research commercialisation partnership; and the Durham Learning Alliance in association with four further education colleges in County Durham. In 2025, it became the first UK university to host a plenary meeting of the European Research Council Scientific Council.
Durham hosts the 'memory intensive' service of the UK's tier-1 DiRAC supercomputer facility, as well as the N8 Research Partnership's tier-2 Bede supercomputer. It has partnered with the Net Zero Technology Centre, SHIFT Geothermal and the Reece Foundation to launch the UK National Geothermal Energy Centre, and also leads the UK National Clean Maritime Research Hub, a consortium of thirteen universities.
Research institutes at the university include the Biophysical Sciences Institute, the Durham Energy Institute, the Institute for Computational Cosmology, the Institute for Data Science, the Institute for Medical Humanities, the Institute for Particle Physics Phenomenology, the Institute of Advanced Study, the Institute of Hazard, Risk and Resiliance, the Institute of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, and the Wolfson Research Institute for Health and Wellbeing. There are also a large number of research centres located within departments, including the IBRU: Centre for Borders Research (Department of Geography) and the Durham Research in Economic Analysis and Mechanisms (Department of Economics), …