The College is a corporate body established under a Royal Charter granted in 1998. Its full corporate title is The Master, Fellows and Scholars of St Edmund’s College in the University of Cambridge. Responsibility for the governance of the College rests with the Governing Body, which consists of the Master and approximately 65 Fellows (Titles A-D). The legal basis of the College’s structure and governance is set out in its Charter, alongside the Statutes and Ordinances. There are additional supporting documents, covering the specific areas of Freedom of Speech, the Disciplinary Code for Students and Disciplinary Code for Fellows, which can be found in this section of the website alongside information on how the College carries out its objectives.

The College is a registered charity (registration number 1137454). The College’s charitable objectives are:

• To advance education, religion, learning and research in the University of Cambridge
• To provide for that purpose a college for men and women who shall be members of the University wherein they may work for degrees of the University or may carry out postgraduate or other special studies at Cambridge

The Trustees of the Charity are the members of Council, who are the Master, the Vice-Master, the Senior Tutor, the Dean, the Bursar, the Secretary of the Governing Body, and six Fellows elected from the Governing Body. There are two student representatives on the Council, the President and Treasurer of the Combination Room, who are not Trustees. The Council is responsible for the financial, legal and operational management of the College, having regard to the ultimate authority of the Governing Body.

The Council has established a sub-committee structure through which effective governance of the College is exercised. A list of the sub-committees is available here.

The Visitor to the College is the Archbishop of Westminster.