The University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus opened in September 2000. It was the first ever branch campus of a British University established outside the UK – earning the distinction of the Queen’s Award for Enterprise 2001 and the Queen’s Award for Industry (International Trade) 2006.

In September 2005, the Malaysia Campus moved to its new purpose-built campus at Semenyih, 30km south of Kuala Lumpur city centre. Occupying a scenic position overlooking green hills on a 101-acre site, and designed to mirror the attributes of University Park in the UK, the campus is a self-contained and self-sufficient neighbourhood village in a garden environment with 5000 students. It combines a high-quality living environment with state-of-the-art learning, teaching and research facilities.

Being a branch campus of the University of Nottingham, students are not necessarily taught with similar course materials and generally do not sit the same exam papers as those in the UK, but are still under the jurisdiction of the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA). Upon completing a degree at the Malaysia campus, students are awarded a University of Nottingham degree certificate at a convocation held locally which is indistinguishable from the certificates awarded at the Nottingham campus. The degrees that are awarded are accredited by international professional bodies such as the Association of MBAs and the UK Engineering Council.

The university was given a five-star rating in the Malaysia Research Assessment (MyRA) for research excellence in 2020. The only foreign university in Malaysia to be awarded two consecutive MyRAs. Comprising 280 academic staff, the university’s research focuses on future food Malaysia and developing sustainable societies, nanotechnology, inclusion in the workplace, data analytics and artificial intelligence, among others. Apart from the taught undergraduate and postgraduate programmes, the university conducts projects for research-based postgraduate studies. There are more than 20 research programmes being carried out at the Malaysia Campus.