Initially housed primarily at a cantonment in Solan, it later relocated to a newly built campus in Chandigarh, and was renamed Panjab University.

It has 201 affiliated colleges[6] spread over the eight districts of Punjab state and union-territory of Chandigarh, with Regional Centres at Muktsar, Ludhiana and Hoshiarpur.

The main administrative and academic buildings are located in sector 14, beside a health centre, a sports complex, hostels and residential housing.

[15] The administrative office was in Solan and the teaching departments functioned from Hoshiarpur, Jalandhar, Delhi, and Amritsar.

In 1956 the university was relocated to Chandigarh, on a red sandstone campus designed by Pierre Jeanneret under the guidance of Le Corbusier.

[18] The main campus at Chandigarh is spread over 550 acres in Sectors 14 and 25, the teaching area is in the north-east, with the Central Library, Fine Arts Museum, and three-winged structure of the Gandhi Bhawan forming its core; the sports complex, the health centre, the dolphinarium, student centre and the shopping centre in the middle; 16 university hostels and residential area in the south-east, stretching into the adjacent Sector 25 which also houses the University Institute of Engineering and Technology, Dr. Harvansh Singh Judge Institute of Dental Sciences and Hospital, UIAMS, and Institute of Biological Sciences.

The university has been awarded Maulana Abul Kalam Azad (MAKA) Trophy sixteenth times, the latest being in the year 2021 and making a hat-trick twice.

MAKA Trophy represents the highest award given for inter-university sports and university sportsperson performance in the international and national arena by the Government of India.

Designed by the architect Pierre Jeanneret, a cousin of Le Corbusier, it is an auditorium hall that sits in the middle of a pond of water.

There is a cafeteria called Indian Coffee House with a panoramic view on the top floor of the centre it was shut down during COVID 19 Pandemic but now resumed its operations.

It has a large collection of works of contemporary Indian art, including paintings, sculptures, graphics and drawings by artists such as Jamini Roy, M.F.

Subramanyan, Vivan Sundaram, Bhupen Khakhar, Dhanraj Bhagat, Arpana Caur, Shiv Singh etc.

[28] The department conducts a separate admission test, for both courses, on the pattern of the Union Public Service Commission.

Currently, the university has following regional centres in the state of Punjab: The university comprises 78 departments, 15 centres/chairs on the campus and six Constituent Colleges located at Sikhwala (Sri Muktsar Sahib), Balachaur (SBS Nagar), Nihalsingh Wala (Moga), Dharamkot (Moga), Mokham Khan Wala (Ferozepur) and Guru Harsahai (Ferozepur) and one rural regional centre.

The IQAC is integral to the university's commitment to continuous improvement and excellence in higher education.

[54] The Indian Council of Social Science Research has set up its North-Western Regional Centre on the campus.

The centre runs a library, a seminar complex and a guest house for visiting scholars under its study-grants programme.

[55] The institute offers a five-year integrated, honour-school Masters of Arts degree in the Social Sciences.

The university is one of six centres in the country for super-computing facilities to serve the north-western region in the Technology Information Forecasting and Assessment Council (TIFAC), DST.

The centre has helped the states of Haryana, Panjab and Himachal Pradesh in solving problems associated with energy planning, management and environmental protection.

[citation needed] The centre has done work on solar thermal energy storage, solar detoxification, biomethanation of agricultural/industrial/forest wastes, biomass combustion and gasification, indoor air quality, energy and environmental conservation and management, and hydrodynamics of polymeric solutions.

The university has participated in the project called International Collaboration for Research for Elementary Particles and the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) CERN, Geneva CMS Experiment with a Government of India grant of Rs.

[56] Panjab University is active on social media websites such as Facebook,[57] Twitter[58] and Instagram.