A scene from the film Harry Potter and the Sorcerer?s Stone.

London, Oct. 10: Students dreaming of setting foot on a film set may already have achieved their ambition ? because an increasing number of British universities are moonlighting as movie locations.

Academia?s dreaming spires have variously been asked to double as the Bank of England, the Nazi Party headquarters, a lunatic asylum, a cartoon police department and even other universities.

Phil Haselden, managing director of Location Partnerships, says: ?More and more universities are opening their doors to filming and photography. I think institutions have to be open to making money from other revenue streams. Initially it was holding conferences, now it?s filming.?

There are other reasons why universities are ideal film sets, according to Kate Webber, the managing director of Lavish Locations, an agency involved in scouting for Wimbledon, Stage Beauty and Vanity Fair.

?Some universities have fantastic, massive halls and obviously during the holiday season film-makers can get more uninterrupted shooting time out of them,? she explains. ?Also, universities often need the money, so will be more reasonably priced than stately homes.?

In most cases, institutions are not asked to play themselves. Earlier this year, University of London students were surprised to see Gotham City police cars cruising around in front of Senate House, which has been used as the police HQ in the Batman films and will return to the screen next year in Batman Begins.

Cynthia Barlow of the University of London says Senate House, the federal university?s administrative centre, is popular. ?We?ve had Sir Ian McKellan?s Richard III filmed here and, on television, Poirot and Jeeves and Wooster, things that need this kind of grand setting. Sometimes the building is so dressed up, it?s unrecognisable. Recently, it was done up as a Nazi Party headquarters.?

University College London has starred in The Mummy. ?The latest people here were for the Thunderbirds film ? they used our main quad as the Bank of England,? says a spokesperson.

While institutions across the UK are clocking up television work, film-makers remain as keen as students to get into Oxbridge.

?The most sought-after UK universities are Oxford and Cambridge,? says Haselden. ?They have always been very popular. Traditionally they?ve done lots of wonderful things ? most recently Harry Potter and Iris.?

Across the pond, the busiest universities are, predictably, in New York and Los Angeles. Columbia University in Manhattan was the backdrop for scenes in Spider-Man and both Ghostbusters movies.

The University of Southern California in Los Angeles has paid host to dozens of feature films, including The Graduate, Forrest Gump, Species and What Women Want.