Its large campus site is surrounded by the South Downs National Park, and provides convenient access to central Brighton 5.5 kilometres (3.4 mi) away.

The university's organisation broke new ground in seeing the campus divided into Schools of Study, with students able to benefit from a multidisciplinary teaching environment.

Sussex would emphasise cross-disciplinary activity, so that students would emerge from the university with a range of background or 'contextual' knowledge to complement their specialist 'core' skills in a particular subject area.

[12] The student union, as is typical, organised events and concerts, bringing in acts like Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix and Chuck Berry to perform at the University Common Room.

[13] Academically, Sussex was home to figures such as Asa Lord Briggs, Helmut Pappe, Gillian Rose, Jennifer Platt and Tom Bottomore.

Similarly, renowned scholars like Marcus Cunliffe, Gabriel Josipovici, Quentin Bell, Dame Helen Wallace, Stuart Sutherland and Marie Jahoda also became central figures at the university and founded many of its current departments.

Additionally, a number of initiatives at the university were started at this time, such as the Subaltern Studies Group, founded by Ranajit Guha who was Reader in History at Sussex between 1962 and 1981.

In 1973, a group of students prevented United States government adviser Samuel P. Huntington from giving a speech on campus, because of his involvement in the Vietnam War.

[28] The University of Sussex is situated near the city of Brighton and Hove, next to the Stanmer Park reserve, and extends into the Lewes District in its eastern fringe.

[12] Spence expressed his awe at the beauty of the surrounding region and designed the campus as a stream of low buildings so as not to disturb the natural scenery around.

[12] As the campus developed, Spence connected the buildings by a series of 'green, interlocking courtyards that he felt created a sense of enclosure'.

The university holds a number of acclaimed collections and archives, mostly related to twentieth-century literary, political and cultural history.

In the early 1990s, the university promoted the system by claiming "[c]lusters of faculty [come] together within schools to pursue new areas of intellectual enquiry.

The university also has a Genome Damage and Stability Centre, a nuclear magnetic resonance facility and a purpose-built apparatus in cryogenic research.

[84] In 2016, the Transformative Innovation Policy Consortium (TIPC) was set up as a collaboration between the university and the governments of Sweden, Norway, Finland, South Africa and Colombia to research social and economic issues.

[104] These are institutions where there are formal agreements for student exchange, research collaborations, staff and faculty mobility and study abroad schemes.

[113] The building also acts as a hub for a wide range of student opportunities, such as employer fairs, academic skills workshops and wellbeing- and community-building activities.

All students at Sussex have access to a wide variety of Careers and employability support,[114] in addition to the opportunities embedded in their degree programme.

[115] Like most UK Universities, Sussex deliver a number of initiatives to improve equality of opportunity for home-fees students from underrepresented backgrounds to access and succeed in undergraduate higher education.

[119] The University was previously known for its First-Generation Scholars scheme, an award-winning initiative to support students from lower-economic backgrounds and those who are the first to pursue higher education in their families.

[125] At postgraduate level, Sussex offers MA, MS, MRes, PGCert, PGDip, CLNDIP and LLM degrees.

[130] The Sussex International Summer School runs for four and eight weeks starting in July, providing intensive courses.

Two newer accommodation areas were completed in the 2000s: one next to Falmer railway station, named Stanmer Court,[140] and the other next to East Slope, opposite Bramber House, known as Swanborough.

The university competes in the following sports, usually with both men's and women's teams: The Falmer Stadium, home to Brighton & Hove Albion F.C., is located near the Sussex campus.

A mutual relationship of benefits, including potential usage of the stadium's sporting facilities by the university, was established very early on.

[150] The Sussex Sports centre also runs a number of courses, from Yoga to Cycling challenges, as well as fundraisers, children's activities and specialized workshops for students and staff.

The paper is available to students and staff during term-time, covering news and sport on campus, as well as comment pieces, features, lifestyle and arts coverage.

The paper has since covered a variety of stories, including several on-campus occupations and the expulsion of five Sussex students for involvement in protests.

[172] Other prominent academics on the staff of the university have included: Geoffrey Bennington; Homi K. Bhabha (postcolonialism); Ranajit Guha (founder of Subaltern studies); Jonathan Dollimore (Renaissance literature, gender and queer studies); Katy Gardner (social anthropology); Gabriel Josipovici (Dante, the Bible); Jacqueline Rose (feminism, psychoanalysis); Nicholas Royle (modern literature and theory; deconstruction); Alan Sinfield (Shakespeare, sexuality, queer theory); Martin Rees, Baron Rees of Ludlow (Cosmologist); Brian Street (anthropology); John D. Barrow (Cosmologist); Leon Mestel (Astronomer); Gavin Ashenden (Senior Lecturer in English, University Chaplain, broadcaster and Chaplain to Queen Elizabeth II);[173] Keith Pavitt (science and technology policy), and Christopher Freeman (Economist).

Current notable staff (in addition to a number of those mentioned above) include philosopher Andy Clark, economist Richard Tol, psychologist Andy Field, neuroscientist Anil Seth, biologist Dave Goulson, sociologist Gerard Delanty, development economist Sir Richard Jolly, astrophysicist and writer John Gribbin, historian Robin Milner-Gulland, scholar Edward Timms, author Gabriel Josipovici, geographer Melissa Leach, psychologist Dame Lesley Fallowfield, psychologist Brian Bates, biologist Laurence Pearl, historian Maurice Howard, sociologist Jennifer Platt, Dame Denise Holt, policymaker Andy Stirling, political economist Mick Moore, pharmacist Bugewa Apampa, anthropologist Philip Proudfoot and experimental physicist Antonella De Santo.