About Us

The University of Waikato (Māori: Te Whare Wānanga o Waikato), established in 1964, is a public research university located in Hamilton, New Zealand. An additional campus is located in Tauranga. The university performs research in numerous disciplines such as education, social sciences, and management and is an innovator in environmental science, marine and freshwater ecology, engineering and computer science. It offers degrees in health, engineering, computer science, management, Māori and Indigenous Studies, the arts, psychology, social sciences and education

In the mid-1950s, regional and national leaders recognised the need for a new university and urged the then University of New Zealand (UNZ) and the government to establish one in Hamilton. Their campaign coincided with a shortage of school teachers, and after years of lobbying, Minister of Education Philip Skoglund agreed to open a teachers' college in the region. In 1960, the newly established Hamilton Teachers' College, joined by a fledgling university (initially a branch of the University of Auckland), opened a joint campus at Ruakura

In 1964, the two institutions moved to their new home, and the following year the University of Waikato was officially opened by then Governor-General Sir Bernard Fergusson.