The building includes sports equipment, laboratories and teaching space at the university's City South Campus in Edgbaston.

The 113,012 sq ft space boasts a range of facilities and industry standard sports equipment including an Environmental Chamber, used by elite athletes to replicate the experience of exercising in extreme conditions such as sub-zero temperatures, up to 5,000 metres altitude or in dessert heats.

It also includes a new sports hall, a sports therapy clinic, nutrition science labs, subject specific classrooms equipped with the latest teaching technology and a biomedical engineering lab.

To mark the opening university vice-chancellor Professor Philip Plowden unveiled a blue plaque recognising the location’s historic connection with physicist Sir Oliver Lodge.

The plaque celebrates the fact that the site was formerly home to pioneering scientist Lodge who served as the University of Birmingham’s first principal between 1900 and 1920.

Prof Plowden said:

"It gives me great pleasure to have formally opened this new building which will provide state-of-the-art facilities for thousands of our staff and students.

"The industry standard equipment, and our partnerships with professional sports teams, will ensure that by the time our students leave us they have the skills, experience and expertise to hit the ground running in their careers.

"It is also pleasing that after working alongside the Civic Society we were able to unveil a commemorative plaque which recognises the site’s long educational heritage as the former home of the pioneering physicist Sir Oliver Lodge."

The move paves the way for the former Perry Barr home for the university’s Health, Education and Life Sciences Faculty to be converted into the athletes’ village following Birmingham’s successful bid to host the 2020 Commonwealth Games.

Play your part in writing the region's story...

Find out more