The Royal College of Art (RCA) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom, with campuses in South Kensington, Battersea and White City.

[7] During the later 19th century it was primarily a teacher training college; pupils during this period included George Clausen, Christopher Dresser, Luke Fildes, Kate Greenaway and Gertrude Jekyll.

[10][failed verification] The RCA today has three campuses located in South Kensington, Battersea and White City.

Although there was modest development into the mews behind the Darwin Building, the restricted site meant further expansion had to be in another part of London.

[15] A masterplan was commissioned from Haworth Tompkins and phase one of their three-phase design was completed with the opening of the Sackler Building on 19 November 2009, to house the painting department.

The RCA offers a Graduate Diploma pre-masters conversion programme, MA, MRes, MPhil and PhD degrees[24] in twenty-eight subject areas, divided into four schools: architecture, arts & humanities, communication, and design.

[25] In addition to formal qualifications the RCA also offers Summer school and Executive education courses throughout the year.

[26] In 2024, the RCA was placed first in the art and design subject area in the QS World University Rankings published by Quacquarelli Symonds for the tenth year in a row, with an overall score of 98.5/100.

Alumni from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries include the sculptors Jean Gibson, Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore, painters Frank Auerbach, Sir Peter Blake, Frank Bowling, David Hockney, Bridget Riley, Gavin Turk and Charles Tunnicliffe, artists Jake and Dinos Chapman, Tracey Emin and R. B. Kitaj, fashion designers Ossie Clark and Zandra Rhodes, industrial designers James Dyson, and David Mellor, film directors Tony and Ridley Scott, writer Travis Jeppesen, designers Thomas Heatherwick and architect Sir David Adjaye, prominent member of the suffragette movement Sylvia Pankhurst, the musician Ian Dury, sound artist Janek Schaefer, and the actor Alan Rickman.

On February 25, 2021, Virgil Abloh joined staff as a Visiting Professor [citation needed] "to reinforce the importance of education and hands on mentorship of future generations.