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Uppsala University (UU) (Swedish: Uppsala universitet) is a public research university in Uppsala, Sweden. Founded in 1477, it is the oldest university in Sweden and the Nordic countries.

The university rose to significance during the rise of Sweden as a great power at the end of the 16th century and was then given relative financial stability with a large donation from King Gustavus Adolphus in the early 17th century. Uppsala also has an important historical place in Swedish national culture, and identity for the Swedish establishment: in historiography, religion, literature, politics, and music. Many aspects of Swedish academic culture in general, such as the white student cap, originated in Uppsala. It shares some peculiarities, such as the student nation system, with Lund University and the University of Helsinki.

Uppsala belongs to the Coimbra Group of European universities and to the Guild of European Research-Intensive Universities.

The university has nine faculties distributed over three disciplinary domains: Humanities and Social Sciences, Medicine and Pharmacy, and Science and Technology. As of 2020, it had approximately 52,000 registered students at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels and 2,200 PhD students.

Architecturally, Uppsala University has traditionally had a strong presence in Fjärdingen, the neighbourhood around the cathedral on the western side of the river Fyris. Despite some contemporary building developments further away from the centre, Uppsala's historic centre continues to be dominated by the presence of the university.

History

15th century: Origins

As with most medieval universities, Uppsala University initially grew out of an ecclesiastical centre. The archbishop of Uppsala had been one of the most important sees in Sweden proper since Christianity first spread to this region in the ninth century. Uppsala had also long been a hub for regional trade and had contained settlements dating back into the deep Middle Ages. As was also the case with most medieval universities, Uppsala had initially been chartered through a papal bull. Uppsala's bull, which granted the university its corporate rights, was issued by Pope Sixtus IV in 1477 and established several provisions. Among the most important of these was that the university was officially given the same freedoms and privileges as the University of Bologna. This included the right to establish the four traditional faculties of theology, law (Canon Law and Roman law), medicine, and philosophy, and to award the bachelor's, master's, licentiate, and doctoral degrees. The archbishop of Uppsala was also named as the university's chancellor and was charged with maintaining the rights and privileges of the university and its members. Lectures began on 7 October.

16th century: Turbulent times

The turbulent period of the reformation of King Gustavus Vasa resulted in a drop in the already relatively insignificant number of students in Uppsala, which was seen as a centre of Catholicism and potential disloyalty to the Crown. Swedish students generally travelled to one of the Protestant universities in Germany, especially Wittenberg. There is some evidence of academic studies in Uppsala during the 16th century; the Faculty of Theology is mentioned in a document from 1526, King Eric XIV appointed Laurentius Petri Gothus (later archbishop) rector of the university in 1566, and his successor and brother John III appointed several professors in the period 1569–1574. At the end of the century, the situation had changed, and Uppsala became a bastion of Lutheranism, which Duke Charles, the third of the sons of Gustavus Vasa to eventually become king (as Charles IX) used to consolidate his power and eventually oust his nephew Sigismund III Vasa from the throne. The Uppsala Synod in 1593 established Lutheran orthodoxy in Sweden, and Charles and the Council of state gave new privileges to the university on 1 August of the same year.

Theology still had precedence, but in the privileges of 1593, the importance of a university to educate secular servants of the state was also emphasized. Three of the seven professorial chairs which were established were in Theology; of the other four, three were in Astronomy, Physics (or general natural sciences) and Latin eloquence. A fourth chair was given to Ericus Jacobi Skinnerus, who was also appointed rector, but whose discipline was not mentioned in the charter. Of the professors, several were taken over from the Collegium regium Stockolmense in Stockholm, which had been functioning for a few years but closed in 1593. An eighth chair, in Medicine, was established in 1595 but received no appointee for several years. In 1599 the number of students was approximately 150. In 1600 the first post-reformation conferment of degrees took place. In the same year, the antiquarian and mystic Johannes Bureus designed and engraved the seal of the university, which is today used as part of the logotype.

Administration and organisation

Central administration

The governing board of the university is the consistory, with representatives of the faculties as well as members representing the students and non-academic employees (three professors and three students), and ten university outsiders appointed by the Swedish government. All these members in the consistory have the right to vote.

The unions active at the university also have three representatives in the consistory; these members have the right to speak but not any right to vote

Since the last reorganization in 1999, the university has had a separate body called the academic senate, which is a wider, but mostly advisory group representing teaching staff/researchers and students. The executive head of the university is the rector magnificus, whose deputy is the prorector. There are (also since 1999) three vice rectors, each heading one of the three "disciplinary domains" (Arts and Social Sciences, Medicine and Pharmacy, and Science and Technology) into which the nine faculties are divided. Each faculty has a faculty board and is headed by a dean (dekanus). The position of dean is held part-time by a professor of the faculty.

Faculties

Through the division of faculties and the addition of a previously independent school of Pharmacy as a new faculty, the traditional four-faculty organization of European universities has evolved into the present nine faculties. The disciplinary domains and their faculties are as depicted below.

Disciplinary Domain of Arts and Social Sciences

• Faculty of Arts
• Faculty of Social Sciences
• Faculty of Languages
• Faculty of Theology

Faculty of Law (Juridiska fakulteten) is the oldest law faculty in the Nordic countries and existed prior to the university's founding in 1477. The activities of the faculty include a wide range of research areas and specializations. This faculty has one department: the Department of Law.

Faculty of Educational Sciences (formerly the Department of Education, and was raised to the status of a faculty in its own right in 2002)

Disciplinary Domain of Medicine and Pharmacy

Faculty of Medicine

Faculty of Pharmacy, originally an independent "royal institute" in Stockholm, which was moved to Uppsala and incorporated with the university between 1968 and 1972.

Disciplinary Domain of Science and Technology

Faculty of Science and Technology: The engineering programs have since 1982 been marketed as the Uppsala School of Engineering (Uppsala Tekniska Högskola). This has however never been a separate institution. Still, only a unit within the Faculty of Science and Technology and the use of the term has been phased out after the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences was renamed the Faculty of Sciences and Technology in the 1990s.

Lecture Series

Hägerström Lectures

The Hägerström Lectures are a yearly series of talks by prominent philosophers hosted by the Department of Philosophy at Uppsala University.

The initiative for the Hägerström Lectures was taken by Stig Kanger, Chair Professor of Theoretical Philosophy at Uppsala University, from 1968 until his death in 1988. The idea was to invite a distinguished philosopher for a week to give a series of five open lectures unified by a common theme, and provide an opportunity for teachers and students at the Department of Philosophy in Uppsala to meet the guest for informal discussions. The series was inaugurated in 1971 and named in honor of the former chair in practical philosophy (1911–1933), Axel Hägerström, the founding father of the Uppsala School of ethics and the jurisprudential movement known as Scandinavian Legal Realism. The Hägerström Lectures were held annually until 2009, biannually between 2009 and 2022, and have been held annually again since 2022. From 2017 onward, the number of lectures each year has been reduced from five to three.

The first Hägerström Lecturer was Konrad Marc-Wogau, Kanger's predecessor as Chair in Theoretical Philosophy at Uppsala University (1946–1968). The list of speakers since then includes several of the most eminent and influential philosophers of the last half century in a broad range of areas of specialization, including Julia Annas, Alonzo Church, Donald Davidson, Peter Geach, Ian Hacking, Christine Korsgaard, Saul Kripke, John McDowell, Martha Nussbaum, Hilary Putnam, Judith Jarvis Thomson, Willard Van Orman Quine, Wlodek Rabinowicz, Amartya Sen, Patrick Suppes, Kendall Walton, Timothy Williamson and Georg Henrik von Wright.

Campus

University Park and Cathedral area

• Gustavianum
• Old Consistory building
• University Hall
• Ekerman House
• The Dean's House (or Julinsköld Palace)
• Skytteanum
• Oxenstierna House (Juridicum – Faculty of Law)
• Regnellianum
• Carolina Rediviva

West of central Uppsala

• English Park Campus – Centre for the Humanities (including the Centre for Language Studies)
• Centre for Evolutionary Biology (EBC) including the Museum of Evolution
• Botanical Garden
• Segerstedt Building – administrative building

Blåsenhus – Centre for pedagogy, didactics, educational studies and psychology (former location for pedagogical studies was at Seminariehuset in the north of Uppsala)

Other locations in wider central Uppsala

• Theatrum Oeconomicum and Gamla Torget ("The Old Forum")
• The Observatory Park with the old observatory
• Ekonomikum
• The Linnaeus Garden
• Anders Celsius's former house and observatory

South of central Uppsala

• Uppsala University Hospital
• The Rudbeck Laboratory
• Uppsala Biomedical Centre (BMC)
• Geocentrum
• Information Technology Centre (ITC)
• Ångström Laboratory
• Epidemiology hub (Epihubben)

Outside of Uppsala

Campus Gotland

Student life

Nations and student union

Up until June 2010, students at Uppsala University were obliged to become members of one of the nations, corporations of students traditionally according to the province of origin (not strictly upheld now, for practical reasons). The system of dividing students into nations according to origin can ultimately be traced back to the nations at the medieval University of Paris and other early medieval universities, but the Uppsala nations appear only about 1630–1640, most likely under influence of the Landsmannschaften which existed at some of the German universities visited by Swedish students. In Sweden, nations exist only in Uppsala and Lund. The nations were originally seen as subversive organisations promoting less virtuous aspects of student life, but in 1663 the consistory made membership in a nation legal, each nation being placed under the inspectorship of a professor.

The current thirteen nations all have a history stretching back to the early-to-mid 17th century, but some of them are the result of mergers of older, smaller nations that took place in the early 19th century to facilitate the financing of building projects.

The nations at Uppsala University are:

Since the 1960s there is a fourteenth nation, the Skånelandens nation (referring to the Scanian lands) which has no membership fee and exists as a legal device to get around the compulsory membership for students who prefer not to become affiliated with the traditional nations. However, this nation was made redundant in 2010, when membership in a nation ceased to be mandatory.

The Uppsala Student Union was founded in 1849 as a corporation representing all students, irrespective of nation. The pharmaceutical institute became integrated in Uppsala university during 1968 and formed the Faculty of Pharmacy at Uppsala University, and the pharmaceutical educations moved to Uppsala university during 1972. At the same time, the Pharmaceutical Student Union (Pharmaceutical Association of Uppsala Students) became a Student Union at Uppsala University. The students at the faculty of Pharmacy were also exempt from compulsory membership in the nations, but most pharmacy students belonged to one. However, they were obliged to take up membership in the Pharmaceutical Student Union, an organisation having the same role as the nations and Uppsala Student union at the rest of the university.

The compulsory membership in a student union was abolished on 1 July 2010; however, the unions will still be representing organisations in the university boards and committees. The status as a student union will be decided upon by the university board for periods of three years at a time. On 20 February 2013, the university board decided that there will be four student unions at the university from July 2013 – June 2016: the Uppsala Student Union (for students at the faculties of Art, Social Sciences, Languages, Theology, Law, Educational Sciences and Medicine), the Pharmaceutical Student Union (for students at the Faculty of Pharmacy), the Uppsala Union of Engineering and Science Students (at the Faculty of Science and Technology), and Rindi (the union for students at Campus Gotland). In February 2016, two additional associations were given the status as student unions: Uppsala Business & Economics Students Association (for students of economics) and Uppsala Law Student Associations (for students of law). Thus, there are now six student unions at Uppsala university.

Athletics

Sports play a very small role in the life of the university, compared to British and especially U.S. universities, but have existed in various forms since the early 17th century. Uppsala University is more noted for its musical and choral traditions. Both have partial roots in the 17th-century institution of extracurricular exercises for students from the nobility.

The exercitiae

To ease the recruitment of students from the nobility, the university started in the 1630s to offer training in a number of exercitiae or "exercises" (Swedish: exercitier) deemed necessary for the well-rounded education of a young nobleman: riding, fencing, dance, drawing and modern languages such as French and Italian. The initiative came from Chancellor Axel Oxenstierna, who saw the value in a well-educated class of civil servants and the danger to his own class if its members would fall behind in academic education compared to those students who came from the lower estates. An "exercise yard," built for the riding and fencing exercises, was demolished in the late 19th century to give place to the new University Hall. Modern languages were made part of the regular academic curriculum in the 19th century. The surviving "exercises" include:

Fencing – Arranged in collaboration with Upsala Fäktning, a private fencing club.

Gymnastics and sports – Located at the Art Nouveau University Gymnastics Hall, colloquially known as Svettis (from the Swedish word for sweat)

Riding – Arranged by the equestrian department of the university, which has its own stables. Leaders of the activities are the Academy Stable Master and the Inspector Equitandi

Эх сурвалж: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)