Aston University (abbreviated as Aston. for post-nominals) is a public research university situated in the city centre of Birmingham, England. Aston began as the Birmingham Municipal Technical School in 1895, evolving into the UK's first College of Advanced Technology in 1956. Aston University received its royal charter from Queen Elizabeth II on 22 April 1966.

There were two different types of universities in Britain, public research University or Russel group Universities, Aston is a public research university, which has a focus on professor research and graduate students offering a different way of further education or teaching . These universities tended to focus more on practicality of education and how to take studies into the working world.

Aston University has courses like marketing and Human Resources which is different to Russell group universities who focus more on traditional subjects rather than offering courses for students to make it easier to find specific careers.

Aston has one of the leading business schools in the world and gained world wide recognition, all of which was hard to anticipate in 1947 when the technical school created a department of industrial administration. Research at Aston business school started in 1961 when the industrial administration research unit was set up and was involved in groundbreaking research.