Companies, brands and institutions – including the university – are always singular:

<aside> ✅ The University of Nottingham has teamed up with Energy for Business to help fund energy projects.

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<aside> ✅ The Students' Union has opened a new shop.

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Use singular verbs to describe faculties, teams and groups:

<aside> ✅ The faculty has voted to keep the building open.

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But when talking about individual members who make up a group, use “the members of” or “each member of”, and plural or singular verbs as appropriate:

<aside> ✅ The members of the faculty have voted to keep the building open.

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<aside> ✅ Each member of the research team has made substantial progress.

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When you have compound words formed by nouns, adjectives and/or prepositions, make the noun (or the most important noun if there are two) plural:

<aside> ✅ passers-by

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<aside> ✅ medical doctors

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<aside> ✅ brothers-in-law

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And if there's more than one of a proper name ending in "–y", don't change it to "–ies":

<aside> ✅ There were three Marys at the meeting.

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<aside> 👀 See Latin and Greek words for more on how to write certain archaic words in plural.

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