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An upstart rival to Unseen University. Not only having the brass neck to call itself a college of magic and to confer degrees in wizardry when not long ago it was the Braseneck School of Conjuring, it seems to have instigated a Big Thing War between the two institutions.

Ponder Stibbons is playing this very cleverly so as to get larger grants from the Faculty for the High Energy Magic Building. Unseen cannot be seen to lose face nor be out-trumped by the upstart rival. So Ponder's hints that Unseen's VBT (Very Big Thing, specifically Hex) might be superseded by Brazeneck's, although it's only a QBT (Quite Big Thing) now. The senior faculty are concerned that an EBT (Even Bigger Thing) might be in the works. Having discovered a way of getting research money out of the senior wizards - "we can't have those buggers at Braseneck going one better than us!" (M. Ridcully)- you may be sure Ponder is exploiting this to the full. After all, as an additional argument, the Sociology department could get hold of the extra funding and they'd either waste it, or cause trouble, or both. The next step would be a GBT (Great Big Thing.) Ponder states that "if we could ever build a GBT, we'd know the mind of the Creator."

Of course, what the QBT and VBT actually do is besides the point - what matters is the prestige for a University in owning one, so that it can beat its collegiate chest and shout at other Universities "Ours is WAY bigger than yours!".

Ponder Stibbons has certainly learnt how University politics works...come to think of it, he may have made the competing college up, inspired by a Roundworld institution named after a brass body part.

Braseneck College also published the Journal of Irreducible Research, much to the UU's contempt; proper wizards don't tell others what they're working on, and they suspect most of the Journal is for "having written", not for reading, in any event.

Mentioned in The Science of Discworld III: Darwin's Watch and A Collegiate Casting-Out of Devilish Devices