Brown University is a private Ivy League research university in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. It is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the US, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. One of nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution, it was the first US college to codify that admission and instruction of students was to be equal regardless of the religious affiliation of students.

The university is home to the oldest applied mathematics program in the country and oldest engineering program in the Ivy League. It was one of the early doctoral-granting institutions in the U.S., adding masters and doctoral studies in 1887. In 1969, it adopted its Open Curriculum after student lobbying, which eliminated mandatory general education distribution requirements. In 1971, Brown's coordinate women's institution, Pembroke College, was fully merged into the university.

The university comprises the College, the Graduate School, Alpert Medical School, the School of Engineering, the School of Public Health and the School of Professional Studies. Its international programs are organized through the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, and it is academically affiliated with the Marine Biological Laboratory and the Rhode Island School of Design, which offers undergraduate and graduate dual degree programs. Brown's main campus is in the College Hill neighborhood of Providence. The university is surrounded by a federally listed architectural district with a concentration of Colonial-era buildings. Benefit Street has one of America's richest concentrations of 17th- and 18th-century architecture. Undergraduate admissions are among the most selective in the country, with an acceptance rate of 5% for the class of 2026.

As of March 2022, 11 Nobel Prize winners, 1 Fields Medalist, 7 National Humanities Medalists, and 11 National Medal of Science laureates have been affiliated with Brown as alumni, faculty, or researchers. Alumni also include 29 Pulitzer Prize winners, 21 billionaires, 4 U.S. secretaries of state, over 100 members of the United States Congress, 58 Rhodes Scholars, 22 MacArthur Genius Fellows, and 38 Olympic medalists.