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About Linköping University
Linköping University will never rest on its laurels.
In close collaboration with the business world and society, Linköping University (LiU) conducts world-leading, boundary-crossing research in fields including materials science, IT and hearing. In the same spirit, the university offers many innovative educational programs, many of them with a clear vocational focus, leading to qualification as, for example, doctors, teachers, economists, and engineers.
The university has 32,000 students and 4,000 employees on four campuses. Together we seek answers to the complex questions facing us today. Our students are among the most desirable in the labor market and international rankings consistently place LiU as a leading global university.
LiU achieved university status in 1975 and innovation is our only tradition.
History of Linköping University
In 1975 Sweden’s sixth university was founded in Linköping. Since then Linköping University (LiU) has grown considerably, expanding to Norrköping and Stockholm.
Linköping has been an important center of learning since medieval times when Linköping Cathedral offered a school with extensive international contacts and its own student hall in Paris. In 1627 the Cathedral School became the third upper secondary school in Sweden and in 1843 a college for elementary school teachers began operations. In Norrköping, the Fröbel Institute - Sweden’s first college for training pre-school teachers - was founded in 1902.
From university college to university
What would later become Linköping University began to take shape in the mid-1960s. Higher education in Sweden was expanding and in 1965 the Swedish Parliament decided to establish a branch of Stockholm University, together with a university college of engineering and medicine, in Linköping.
In the autumn of 1967, the branch of Stockholm University moved into premises in central Linköping. There the first students could take courses in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Two years later the units for engineering and medicine got underway.
In 1970 education and research started moving into the recently built Campus Valla, a short distance from the town center. Buildings A and B were the first to be completed. The same year the various parts were merged to form Linköping University College, including faculties of engineering, medicine and arts, and sciences.
The new university college was the first in Sweden to offer study programs in Industrial Engineering and Management and Applied Physics and Electrical Engineering, both starting in 1969. A few years later, in 1975, Linköping University launched Sweden’s first Computer Science and Engineering program.
1975 was also the year when Linköping University College became Linköping University, the sixth university in Sweden. In line with the 1977 reform of the Swedish higher education system, teacher education was also transferred to Linköping University.
Interdisciplinary research and problem-based learning
Linköping University has always worked with innovation in education and research. In 1980 the newly formed Department of Thematic Studies adopted an approach that was new in Sweden. Research was organized in interdisciplinary themes, such as Technology and Social Change or Water and Environmental Studies. Scientists worked across boundaries to solve complex problems. LiU was also first in Sweden to introduce graduate research schools for different themes. The model later spread to other parts of the university and became a national success.
The new Faculty of Health Sciences (Hälsouniversitetet), formed in 1986, combined governmentally and regionally funded education. It introduced a radically changed methodology, being the first in Sweden to use problem-based learning, PBL. Later, LiU became the first university in the world to allow students from different health sciences programs to treat actual patients on a student-managed training ward.
Expansion to Norrköping - and Stockholm
A significant milestone in the history of the University was the opening of Campus Norrköping in 1997. Some programs had previously operated from Norrköping, but the number of students now grew drastically in line with government efforts to expand higher education. Historical factories in the former industrial district were again filled with life, as they were filled with classrooms, laboratories, cafés, a library and of course students.
Linköping University also expanded to Stockholm when the reputable Carl Malmsten School of Furniture sought a collaborative partner from the academic sector. The Malmsten furniture design and handicraft programs became part of LiU in 2000. After almost 60 years at Södermalm in central Stockholm, Malmstens moved to new premises on the island of Lidingö in the autumn of 2009. LiU got its fourth campus.
Buro Millennial / Pexels
LiU in figures
Some important figures for Linköping University.
Education
- 32,000 students (full-time equivalents 17,907)
- 21,400 on Campus Valla
- 5,500 on Campus Norrköping
- 3,900 on University Hospital Campus (US)
- 2,100 distance students and students in other locations, including Campus Lidingö
(Some students take courses on more than one campus.)
- 120 study programs, of which 27 are international programs in English
- 550 single-subject courses
- Exchange agreements with 400 universities in 50 countries
- 2,400 international students
- 2,200 first cycle degrees
- 2,700 second-cycle degrees
Research and scientific training
- 300 professors
- 1,200 PhD students
- 40 licentiate degrees
- 140 doctoral degrees
Staff
- 4,000 employees (full-time equivalents 3,156)
