Lund University is a public university in Sweden and one of northern Europe’s oldest universities. The university is located in the city of Lund in the province of Scania, Sweden. Lund University has nine faculties, with additional campuses in the cities of Malmö and Helsingborg, with 40,000 students in 270 different programmes and 1,300 freestanding courses. The university has some 600 partner universities in nearly 70 countries and it belongs to the League of European Research Universities as well as the global Universitas 21 network. Lund University is consistently ranked among the world’s top 100 universities.
Organisation
Administration
The University Board is the University’s highest decision-making body. The Board comprises the Vice-Chancellor, representatives of the teaching staff and students, and representatives of the community and business sector. Chair of the board is Margot Wallström. Executive power lies with the Vice-Chancellor and the University Management Group, to which most other administrative bodies are subordinate.
Faculties
Lund University is divided into nine faculties:
- Faculties of Humanities and Theology
- Faculty of Engineering (LTH)
- Faculty of Fine & Performing Arts
- Faculty of Law
- Faculty of Medicine
- Faculty of Science
- Faculty of Social Sciences
- School of Aviation
- School of Economics and Management
Research centres
The university is also organised into more than 20 institutes and research centres, such as:Esaias Tegnér statue near the towering Lund Cathedral.
- Lund University Centre for Sustainability Studies (LUCSUS)
- Biomedical Centre
- Centre for Biomechanics
- Centre for Chemistry and Chemical Engineering – Kemicentrum
- Centre for East and South-East Asian Studies
- Centre for European Studies
- Centre for Geographical Information Systems (GIS Centrum)
- Centre for Innovation, Research and Competence in the Learning Economy (CIRCLE)
- Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Lund University
- Centre for Molecular Protein Science
- Centre for Risk Analysis and Management (LUCRAM)
- International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics at Lund University (IIIEE)
- Lund Functional Food Science Centre
- Lund University Diabetes Centre (LUDC)
- MAX lab – Accelerator physics, synchrotron radiation and nuclear physics research
- Pufendorf Institute
- Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law
- Swedish South Asian Studies Network
Academics
LTH’s Design Centre.University ObservatoryMAX IV synchrotron radiation laboratoryNano-science & technology LabBio Medical Center
Education
Approximately 42,000 students (27,000 FTE) study within one of the 276 educational programs, the 100 international master’s programs, or the 2,200 independent courses. Around five hundred courses are, or can be, held in English for the benefit of international exchange students. There are several programs allowing foreign students to study abroad at the University. Notable foreign students include United States Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who spent time at Lund University in the 1960s conducting research. The university offers 6 out of the 10 most popular master’s programs in Sweden (2021), in terms of numbers of applications. Five of those programs are offered at the School of Economics and Management (LUSEM).
Students are awarded ECTS credits for all completed courses. Grading scales vary by program and even course; “Pass/Fail” and “Pass with distinction/Pass/Fail” are most common, but ECTS grades are increasingly given as well. Engineering students generally receive grades as “5/4/3/Fail”.
Research
Lund University is well known as one of Scandinavia’s largest research universities. It ranks among top performers in the European Union in terms of papers accepted for publication in scientific journals. It is one of Sweden’s top receiver of research grants, most of which come from government-funded bodies. The EU is the university’s second largest external research funder and Lund is the 23rd largest receiver of funding within the union’s Seventh Framework Programme. The university is active in many internationally important research areas such as nanotechnology, climate change and stem cell biology.
Innovation
One of the most famous innovations based on research from Lund University is diagnostic ultrasound, which is today a routine method of examination in hospitals around the world. Other examples of pioneering innovations are the artificial kidney, which laid the foundations for the multinational company Gambro and which makes life easier for dialysis patients worldwide, and Bluetooth technology, which enables wireless communication over short distances.