Royal Holloway, as a part of the University of London, a federation of London higher education institutions. 

Home to a range of universities, colleges and schools, London has a student population of about 378,000.and is a centre of research and development. Most primary and secondary schools in London follow the same system as the rest of England.

With 125,000 students, the University of London is the largest contact teaching university in the United Kingdom and in Europe.It comprises 20 colleges as well as several smaller institutes, each with a high degree of autonomy. Constituent colleges have their own admissions procedures, and are effectively universities in their own right, although most degrees are awarded by the University of London rather than the individual colleges. Its constituents include multi-disciplinary colleges such as UCL, King's, Royal Holloway and more specialised institutions such as the London School of Economics, SOAS, the Royal Academy of Music, the Courtauld Institute of Art and the Institute of Education.

Imperial College London and University College London have been ranked among the top ten universities in the world by The Times Higher Education Supplement: in 2007 Imperial was ranked the 5th best and UCL the 9th best university in the world.

In addition, the LSE is considered the world‘s leading social science institution for teaching and research, plus has the most international student body of any university in the world today.

London's other universities, such as Brunel University, City University, London Metropolitan University, Middlesex University, University of East London, the University of Westminster, Kingston University and London South Bank University are not part of the University of London but are still leaders in their field and popular choices among students both nationally and internationally. Some were polytechnics until these were granted university status in 1992, and others which were founded much earlier. Imperial College London left the University of London in 2007. London is also known globally for its business education, with the London Business School (ranked 1st in Europe - Business Week) and Cass Business School (Europe's largest finance school) both being top world rated business schools. In addition there are three international universities: Schiller International University, Richmond University and Regent's College.

London is home to many museums, galleries, and other institutions which are major tourist attractions as well as playing a research role. The Natural History Museum (biology and geology), Science Museum and Victoria and Albert Museum (fashion and design) are clustered in South Kensington's "museum quarter", while the British Museum houses historic artefacts from around the world.The British Library at St Pancras is the UK's national library, housing 150 million items. The city also houses extensive art collections, primarily in the National Gallery, Tate Britain and Tate Modern. See the list of museums in London.