Lund University (Swedish: Lunds universitet) is a university in Lund in southernmost Sweden. The university was founded in 1666 and is the second oldest within Sweden's present borders.

Lund University has 7 faculties, with additional campuses in the cities of Malmö and Helsingborg, with a total of over 34,000 people studying in 50 different programmes and 800 separate courses. It belongs to the global Universitas 21 network of universities.

The university traditionally centers on the Lundagård park adjacent to the Lund Cathedral, with various departments spread in different locations in town, but mostly concentrated in a belt stretching north from the park, through the university hospital area to the somewhat farther north and continuing out to the northeastern periphery of the town, where one finds the large campus of the Faculty of Technology, known as the Lund Institute of Technology.

History

Lund has a long history as a center for learning and was the ecclesiastical centre and seat of the archbishop of Denmark, who before the reformation was primate for all of Scandinavia. A cathedral school for the training of clergy was established in 1085 and still exists as a gymnasium (secondary school). A first university or studium generale was established in 1483 within the Franciscan friary, but seems to have left little trace.

The present university was established in 1666, as a part of the ultimately successful aspiration to assimilate the provinces recently (1658) acquired from Denmark. Although the second oldest university within the present borders of Sweden, at its foundation it was actually the fifth university under the Swedish king:

• in 1477, Uppsala University was founded;
• in 1632, Academia Gustaviana had been founded in Dorpat, today in Estonia;
• in 1640, the Academy of Åbo was founded in Turku, today in Finland;
• in 1648, with the Peace of Westphalia, also the University of Greifswald, today in Germany, came under the Swedish Crown.

Faculties

The main administrative building at Lund University, next to Kungshuset.

• Faculty of Liberal Arts and Theology
• Faculty of Medicine
• Faculty of Law
• Faculty of Natural Sciences
• Faculty of Social Sciences
• Lund School of Economics and Management
• Faculty of Technology (Lund Institute of Technology)
• Faculty of Performing Arts (the Academies of Music, Art, and Theatre)

There are also departments located in Malmö and Helsingborg.

Notable people connected to Lund University

• Janne Rydberg discovered the Rydberg formula at Lund University in 1888
• Medical ultrasonography in echocardiography of the heart was pioneered by Inge Edler and Carl Hellmuth Hertz in cooperation between the department of cardiology and the department of electrical measurements in 1953
• Per Georg Scheutz graduated as a student of law in 1805 before moving to Stockholm and turning to mechanical engineering
• Martin Wiberg, inventor, invented a logarithmic table generating machine in 1875
• Lars Hörmander, mathematician, awarded the Fields medal in 1962.
• Arvid Carlsson, Nobel Laureate in medicine or physiology 2000
• Elis Strömgren (1870-1947), astronomer; Professor and Director of the Observatory at Copenhagen University. Father of the astronomer Bengt Strömgren.
• Elias Magnus Fries (1794-1878), mycologist, (student in Lund 1811, professor in Lund 1824, from 1834 professor at Uppsala University)
• Samuel Pufendorf (1632-1694), German jurist, political scientist and historian (professor in Lund 1670-1677)
• Knut Wicksell (1851-1926), economist (professor in Lund 1900-1916)
• Axel Möller (1830-1896), astronomer (Ph.D. 1853, professor 1863-1895)
• Albert Victor Bäcklund (1845-1912), mathematician and physicist (Ph.D. 1868, professor from 1878)
• Manne Siegbahn (1886-1978), professor at Uppsala University, Nobel Prize in Physics 1924. (Ph.D. 1911)
• Boris Smeds (b. 1944), radio engineer at ESA
• Esaias Tegnér (1782-1846), writer, professor of Greek, later Bishop of Växjö , Member of the Swedish Academy
• Otto Lindblad (1809-1864), composer
• Bengt Lidner (1757-1793), poet
• Thomas Thorild (1759-1808), poet, critic and philosopher
• Frans Gunnar Bengtsson (1894-1954) studied in Lund from 1912 until receiving his Licentiate in Philosophy in 1930. He then wrote the world-famous book The Long Ships.
• Hans Alfredson (b. 1931), writer, entertainer and film director, former head of Skansen.

Honorary doctorates

• In 1999 United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan was made an Honorary Doctor of Law.

Partner Universities

• Ernst Moritz Arndt University of Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany

External links

• Lund University - Official site
• Lund Institute of Technology - Official site
• Lund School of Economics and Management - Official site

See also:

• Royal Swedish Physiographic Society in Lund