The universities of the world are the primary homes both of learning and of research, as well as serving as repositories for accumulated knowledge. Most people who are members of universities have chosen academia and research as their career, but it not unknown for individuals to choose to take a lower-level course in order to enhance their understanding of the world, either for professional development or for pleasure.

Unlike the guilds and the churches, the universities are based around specific locations. Most major cities will have a university attached to them, which will in turn have various departments focusing on different areas of research. While these institutions are all separate, there is a large degree of intellectual collaboration between them - to the extent that some have suggested they officially merge and form a 'Guild of Researchers'. However, most people agree that the structure of the universities is sufficiently distinct from the guild structure that this would lead to more complication than simplification.

As they do not appear to create goods that can be sold, it is difficult to see where the universities' income comes from. The answers are several. Most universities work with the Printers Guild to operate a publishing wing, selling the results of research to the curious public. They also provide education to those who wish for a deeper knowledge of an area than their education provided them with. Some also have sound investments, usually of land, which continue to return profits.

Mostly, however, the universities are sponsored to complete research.

This research can be industrial - such as researching the effectiveness of different kinds of fuel - or more cultural - such as looking at the history of a particular god. The universities also tend to ask for more sponsorship than is needed to fund that specific area of research in order to develop more 'useless' areas of research, such as history and philosophy, with the theory that, in an interconnected world, the research done in one area will likely help other areas too.

The Terms of Trade define universities as being organisations devoted to the collection, curation and spreading of knowledge, in particular, knowledge that does not fall under the purview of any particular guild. This has led to some contention where guilds have taken part in research that the universities feel should rightly have been done in a guild-sponsored university.

Ultimately, there have been no hard and fast rules set down to avoid these disputes in future. Some cases have ruled that the developments made by guilds have fallen within natural development, but similar cases have been termed to be in breach of the Terms. Wanting to avoid potential costly court cases, many guilds opt to play it safe and sponsor universities to do any research and development they need.

The universities attract researchers with a wide range of academic interests and a wide range of different understandings of the elements - as institutes of learning, all different lenses are considered and researched in different ways. However, the chromatic lens is particularly worth noting, both for its prominence in academic life and its general absence from any other contexts. The chromatic lens is considered the most 'pure' form of the elements, and as such is the focus of most of the theoretical sciences which have risen to the fore in universities.

Different interpretations of the elements and, in particular, the focuses on different elements, have been the cause of many rivalries within universities: people tend to be very protective of their own interpretations. This is fostered by the system of studentship where, between the ages of 11 and 21, students within the universities become gradually more specialised in their subject area through a process of eliminatory exams, leading to a culture of disdain for other areas.

Once a studentship is complete, the student becomes a junior researcher, ready to be assigned to various projects. Academic merit, or in some cases, simply knowing the right people can allow an individual to advance to senior researcher, or even to a position of official responsibility such as a senior librarian. The individual in charge of an individual is generally known as the Chancellor, and they wield a significant degree of power.

A number of separate institutes have come together to form a single academic body for the purposes of the mission. Nicknamed the University of Landfall, this is the home of most research that will be done in the early stages of the mission - and certainly the research done before any other cities are formed to create their own universities to rival it.