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Founding
Founding of University of Helsinki
public university in Helsinki, Finland
- 26 March 1640
- Europe
Founding
public university in Helsinki, Finland
Fetching the article from Wikipedia…
The University of Helsinki (Finnish: Helsingin yliopisto, HY; Swedish: Helsingfors universitet, HU) is a public university in Helsinki, Finland. The university traces its origins back to 1640 when it was established in Turku under the Swedish Empire. Following the Great Fire of Turku, the institution relocated to Helsinki in 1828 with backing from Tsar Alexander I. The University of Helsinki is the oldest and largest university in Finland and enrols over 30,000 students annually.
The university's predecessor The Cathedral School of Åbo, was founded in 1276 with the aim to educate boys to become servants of the Church.
The university was officially founded on 26 March 1640 by Queen Christina of Sweden (1626–1689) in Turku (Sw. Åbo), as the Åbo Kungliga Akademi (Latin: Regia Academia Aboensis) under the Swedish Empire. It was moved to Helsinki in 1828 under the sponsorship of Tsar Alexander I following the Great Fire of Turku. The senior part of the school formed the core of the university, while the junior year courses were a grammar school. It was the third university founded in the Swedish Empire.
During the period of the Grand Duchy of Finland (1809–1917), Grand Duke Alexander I expanded the university and doubled its funding in 1811 to establish new academic positions. The institution originally operated in Turku under several names,The university operated in Turku under several names, such as the Imperial Academy of Turku. Following the Great Fire of Turku in 1827, Emperor Nicholas I ordered the entire university to relocate to Helsinki, where it was eventually renamed the Imperial Alexander University in Finland with the primary task of educating civil servants for the Grand Duchy.
The university became a community that embraced the new Humboldtian ideals of science and culture. It studied humanity and its environment by using scientific methods. New statutes enacted in 1828 stated that the university's mission was to promote the development of the Sciences and Free Arts in Finland and to educate the youth for the service of the Emperor and the Fatherland. The university held a special status during the Russian period. The heir to the Russian Crown served as its chancellor. This made the university directly subordinate to the Emperor rather than to the Governor-General or the Senate. It soon became a center of cultural, political, and legal life. Great figures such as Johan Vilhelm Snellman, Johan Ludvig Runeberg, Elias Lönnrot, and Zachris Topelius were active in its activities.
In the 19th century, the focus of research shifted from collecting material to using experimental, empirical, and analytical methods. This more scientific approach led to specialization and the creation of new disciplines. The number of professors increased tenfold and the number of students grew from about 400 to just over 3,000. As these disciplines developed, Finland gained more scholarly knowledge and many graduates later entered industry and government.
After the fire in Turku, many buildings and collections were lost. In Helsinki, the university quickly rebuilt its infrastructure. The main building was completed in 1832. It stands in the center of Helsinki, opposite the Senate, and was designed by architect Carl Ludvig Engel. Other facilities were also established: a clinical hospital and a midwifery facility (1832), a botanical garden (1832), an astronomical observatory (1834), and a university library (1840). This central location allowed the university to follow Finnish society closely and be directly supervised by the Emperor's representatives.
The university played a key role in the development of Finnish identity and culture. It mapped Finnish nature, landscapes, and climate and rebuilt its natural science collections from scratch. Alexander von Nordmann and William Nylander, both researchers, gained international recognition for their work. The university also adopted German neohumanism. Its statutes encouraged in-depth study and original research.
Over time, the institution evolved into a modern university of science. The growing number of students and the admission of women into higher education marked a significant social change. This expansion laid the groundwork for future higher education institutions in Finland, including Åbo Akademi and the University of Turku.
The third period of the university's history began with the creation of a fully independent Republic of Finland in 1917, and with the renaming of the university as the University of Helsinki. Once Finland declared its full independence in 1917, the university was given a crucial role in building the nation state and, after World War II, the welfare state. Members of the academic community promoted the international relations of the new state and the development of its economic life. Furthermore, they were actively involved in national politics and the struggle for equality.
In the interwar period the university was the scene of a conflict between those who wanted to advance the usage of Finnish language in the university, to the detriment of Swedish and those who opposed such move. Geographer Väinö Tanner was one of the most vocal defenders of Swedish language usage. Swedish People's Party of Finland initiated a campaign collecting 153 914 signatures in defense of the Swedish language that were handed to the parliament and government in October 1934. On an international front academics from Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Iceland sent letters to the diplomatic representations of Finland in their respective countries warning about a weakening of the Nordic unity that would result from diminishing the role of Swedish in the University of Helsinki.
Courses are provided in both Finnish and Swedish. Since Swedish, albeit an official language of Finland, is a minority language, Finnish is by far the dominating language at the university. Teaching in English is extensive throughout the university at master, licentiate, and doctoral levels, making it a de facto third language of instruction.
In the 20th century, scholarly research at the University of Helsinki has achieved recognition at a competitive European level in several fields. This was manifested, among other things, by international recognitions granted to its professors, such as the Fields Medal received by the mathematician Lars Ahlfors (1936), the Nobel Prize in Chemistry granted to Professor A.I. Virtanen (1945) and the Nobel Prize in Medicine shared by Professor Ragnar Granit (1967). In the Continuation War, the university was heavily damaged by bombs during a Soviet air raid on 27 February 1944.
After World War II, university research focused on improving Finnish living conditions and supporting major changes in the structure of society and business. For example, the university aligned its research with the government's goals to improve public welfare during a time of national reconstruction.
The university also contributed to the breakthrough of modern technology. Finnish researchers took part in one of the first Big Science projects—a peaceful research project in atomic energy and nuclear physics launched in 1955 by President Eisenhower. This project brought together experts from the University of Helsinki, the University of Technology, and other institutes, and it spurred a number of economic innovations.
The progress of scientific development created many new disciplines and faculties at the University of Helsinki. At present the university comprises 11 faculties, 500 professors and almost 40,000 students. The university has established as its goal to "further its position as one of Europe's top multidisciplinary research universities".
The university is divided into eleven faculties. They are listed below in the official order used by the university, reflecting both the history of the university and the hierarchy of disciplines at the time when the university was established:
The university also has several independent institutes, such as research centres and libraries, the most notable of which are perhaps the National Library of Finland and Helsinki University Library. Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies is another independent institute within the University of Helsinki, an Institute for Advanced Study, which is modeled upon the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. Previous directors include Raimo Väyrynen (2002–2004) and Juha Sihvola (2004–2009).
University of Helsinki is ranked at 101-150th in the world by the 2023 Academic Ranking of World Universities published by Shanghai Jiao Tong University. According to the Times Higher Education World University Rankings for 2023, the University of Helsinki is ranked at 121st overall in the world. In 2024 THE–QS World University Rankings list, the University of Helsinki was ranked 115th.
In 2022, around 31,000 students were enrolled in the degree programs of the university spread across 11 faculties and 11 research institutes.
As of 1 August 2005, the university complies with the structure of the Europe-wide Bologna Process and offers bachelor, master, licenciate, and doctoral degrees. Admission to degree programmes is usually determined by entrance examinations, in the case of bachelor's degrees, and by prior degree results, in the case of master and postgraduate degrees.
The University of Helsinki offers a wide range of master's degree programmes, taught entirely in English. The scope of the programmes is 120 ECTS credits, completed with two years of full-time study. Some programmes are organised by the University of Helsinki along with other Finnish and foreign universities. All programmes comply with the national legislation governing university education and are, therefore, recognised globally.
It is a member of various international university networks, such as Europaeum, UNICA, the Utrecht Network, and is a founding member of the League of European Research Universities. The university has also received international financial support for global welfare; for example, in September 2021, the U.S. Department of Defense provided the university with more than four million euros in funding for the treatment of MYC genes and breast cancer.
Research institutes within the university include the following:
Text from the Wikipedia article “University of Helsinki”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.