The International Alliance of Research Universities (IARU) was launched on 14 January 2006 as a co-operative network of 10 leading, international research-intensive universities who share similar visions for higher education, in particular the education of future leaders. The IARU Chair is elected from among the IARU Presidents for a period of 2 years. Past IARU Chairpersons: At the launch the presidents elected Professor Ian Chubb, 2005 - 2008 (Australian National University); Professor Tan Chorh Chuan, 2009 - 2012 (National University of Singapore); Professor Ralph Eichler, 2013 - 2014 (ETH Zurich); Professor Ralf Hemmingsen, 2015 - 2016 (University of Copenhagen); Professor Nicholas Dirks, 2017 (University of California, Berkeley); Chancellor Carol Christ, 2017 - 2018 (University of California, Berkeley); President Makoto Gonokami, 2018 - 2020 (University of Tokyo); Vice-Chancellor Stephen Toope, 2021-2022 (University of Cambridge); Vice-Chancellor Anthony Freeling (2022-2023). The current chairperson of IARU is Professor Daya Reddy, the Interim Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cape Town.  

In January 2016, the University of Cape Town joined as the 11th member.

Its Presidents meet annually at a host university venue to discuss joint initiatives under the following categories:

• Global education initiatives, which includes the flagship Global Summer Program Archived 2016-03-03 at the Wayback Machine;
• Institutional joint networking;
• Grand Challenge, and most notably its Campus Sustainability; and,
• Research initiatives.

List of institutions

• Australian National University
• ETH Zurich
• National University of Singapore
• Peking University
• University of California, Berkeley
• University of Cambridge
• University of Cape Town
• University of Copenhagen
• University of Oxford
• University of Tokyo
• Yale University

• 
  Australian National University
• 
  ETH Zürich
• 
  National University of Singapore
• 
  Peking University
• 
  University of California, Berkeley
• 
  University of Cambridge
• 
  University of Cape Town
• 
  University of Copenhagen
• 
  University of Oxford
• 
  University of Tokyo
• 
  Yale University