Umeå University (Swedish: Umeå universitet; Ume Sami: Ubmeje universitiähta) is a publicresearch university located in Umeå, in the mid-northern region of Sweden. The university was founded in 1965 and is the fifth oldest within Sweden's present borders.
As of 2015, Umeå University has over 36,000 registered students (approximately 16,000 full-time students), including those at the postgraduate and doctoral level. It has more than 4,000 employees, half of which are teachers/researchers, including 310 professors.[3]
The highest branch at Umeå University is the University Board of Directors. The board includes eight members (including the board chairman) appointed by the government, the vice-chancellor, three representatives for the teachers, three for other employees, and three for the students.[7]
The university has four faculties and eight campus schools, more than 20 research centers and 36 departments. Most education and research are located at the main campus and Umeå Arts Campus in Umeå, with additional campuses in the cities of Skellefteå and Örnsköldsvik. The total number of students enlisted to some of the 50 different study programs and 800 separate courses exceeds 34,000.
Umeå University has eight Campus Schools, listed below in alphabetical order:
Umeå Institute of Design – a.k.a. UID, opened in 1989 at what later became Umeå Arts Campus, and is designed and equipped solely for the teaching of industrial design. UID offers a Bachelor program, master programmes in Transportation Design, Interaction Design and Advanced Industrial Design, and doctoral studies. The institute is known around the world for its high academic standards. It's the only Swedish school on BusinessWeek's top 60 list of design schools in the world.
Umeå Institute of Technology – is part of the Faculty of Science and Technology. The institute offers a wide range of study programmes, some of them not to be found in any other part of Sweden. Research in engineering is gradually being expanded. The faculty's traditionally strong position in natural sciences form a base on which new technology research is built. The institute is a member of the CDIO Initiative.
Umeå School of Architecture – opened autumn 2009, and moved 2010 to new facilities at Umeå Arts Campus. Aims to be an internationally orientated laboratory of sustainable architectural development, pursuing education on different levels as well as research. Umeå has obtained 250 study seats in the 5-year Architectural programme.
Umeå School of Business and Economics – (a.k.a. USBE) has around 2,000 students. The School offers one Bachelor program, four undergraduate programs (Civilekonomprogram) seven master's degrees programs (included the Erasmus Mundus Master in Strategic Project Management-program), as well as a number of doctoral programs. The International atmosphere is important to the school and it offers one undergraduate program (the International Business program) and all Master's programs and doctoral programs entirely in English.
Umeå School of Education – a.k.a. USE, was inaugurated in January 2009 to replace the former Faculty of Teacher Education.
Umeå School of Fine Arts – was started in 1987 in a former factory next to the Umeälven river. Every year 12 new students are accepted to the school. A total of 60 people are studying at the academy, situated at Umeå Arts Campus.
Aerial view of Umeå University Campus with the University Hospital of Umeå and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. Photo: Bergslagsbild
University Hospital of Umeå, ("Norrlands Universitetssjukhus", "NUS") is the main hospital and research center for medical care and medicine in northern Sweden. In cooperation with the university, it hosts one of seven schools for medicine and dental medicine in Sweden.
Prospective Swedish students make their applications to all Swedish universities at the Swedish Council for Higher Education website Antagning.se and international students use its counterpart in English, Universityadmissions.se. Information specific to non EU/EEA students (applications, tuition fees and scholarships[8]) can be found at Studyinsweden.se.
Umeå University Library (a.k.a. UB) was established at the time of Umeå University's foundation in 1965, but has origins in from the Scientific Library in Umeå established in 1950 at Umeå City Library.[9] Its main building dates from 1968, but has since been extended and rebuilt, most recently in 2006. There are subsidiary libraries at the Norrland's University Hospital, at the Umeå Arts Campus and in Örnsköldsvik.
Umeå University has research departments and education in a broad range of academic disciplines, with more than thirty university departments conducting most teaching and research. Since the 1990s there are also several research centers, mostly local but some in partnership with other Swedish universities, such as the neighbouring Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and Luleå University of Technology.
The university is home to more than 2,000 researchers and teachers, many of them with international background. Important research areas include ageing and population studies, infections, and forest research.
Ageing and population studies have access to the new and unique Linnaeus database, which covers the entire Swedish population between 1960 and 2009. It links information from four existing databases, enabling researchers to find new connections between health, lifestyle and aging. The Demographic Data Base also gives access to extensive databases with population statistics from old Swedish parish records, dating back to the 18th century, and from 2012 a Department of Biobank Research, providing data management for research in large biological sample collections collected since the 1990.[10]
The infection biology research focuses on microorganisms like bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites, and their molecular infection mechanisms – microbial pathogenesis and virulence. Umeå Centre for Microbial Research (UCMR), offer a qualified environment for the development of new strategies against infectious diseases.[11] The centre also hosts The Laboratory for Molecular Infection Medicine Sweden (MIMS), which is the Swedish's node in the Nordic EMBL Partnership for Molecular Medicine.
The forest research includes plant and forest biotechnology within the Umeå Plant Science Centre (UPSC) – a collaborative effort between the Department of Plant Physiology at Umeå University and the Department of Forest Genetics and Plant Physiology at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), and one of the strongest research environments for basic plant research in Europe,[12] known for its research relating to the genome of the Populus tree[4] and the Norway Spruce. The mapping of the spruce genome, in collaboration with the Swedish SciLifeLab, was the first complete sequencing of a gymnosperm and notable because it is seven times the size of the human genome, with some 20 billion base pairs.[5]
Practically all research papers produced by the university's researchers and students are to be found in the DiVA (Digital Scientific Archive) database, founded in 2000 (see link below).
In 2012, the university was ranked 23rd in the world of higher education institutions under the age of 50 years by the British magazine Times Higher Education (THE).[21] In 2013 the university was ranked 1st of Sweden in the International Student Barometer on international student satisfaction by the International Graduate Insight Group.[22] In 2014, the university was ranked 400th in the world for information and Computing Sciences Ranking.[23] At the same time in 2014, the university was ranked between places 101–150 in the world for Life and Agriculture Sciences.[24] and between places 151–200 in the world for Clinical Medicine and Pharmacy.[24]
