History, Affiliations and Rankings
Established in 1537, the University of Lausanne is a public university located in Switzerland. The university is the second oldest in Switzerland. In old times, it was intended for the training of pastors. By the end of the 20th century, there was an important cooperation and development project between the Universities of Lausanne, Geneva, Neuchatel and EPFL. There is a wide range of bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral programmes available at the University of Lausanne. These help students enhance their knowledge in their specific domains, thus enabling them easy access to a chosen profession. It is affiliated with The European Quality Improvement System (EQUIS), which is based on stringent international standards and awards a quality label to the best institutions of higher learning in business. This accreditation ensures the high quality of the faculty's programs from an academic and a pedagogical point of view. It is also affiliated with the Association of MBAs (AMBA), which is an international accreditation body and a professional membership organisation. The university is ranked #184 in Best Global Universities, #73 in Best Global Universities in Europe and at #7 in Best Global Universities in Switzerland.
Infrastructure, Campuses and Courses
The campus is presently located outside the city of Lausanne, on the shores of Lake Leman, in Dorigny. The campus buildings are surrounded by lush green trees and set in a park offering beautiful and varied green spaces. The University of Lausanne also facilitates many sports activities which include football, fitness or underwater diving at the Sports Centre, and theatre at the Grange de Dorigny. The University of Lausanne currently offers 15 university Baccalaureate programs including Biology, Medicine, Pharmaceutical Sciences, Forensic Science, Management, Political Economics, German, English, Archaeology, Spanish, Political Science, Social Science, Theology and many more. The University of Lausanne offers 42 university Master's programs such as Medical Biology, Nursing, Tourism Studies, Environmental Studies, Finance, Digital Humanities and many more. The University of Lausanne offers 26 different doctorate titles distributed among its 7 faculties. The university has Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, Faculty of Law, Criminal Sciences and Public Administration, Faculty of Letters and the School of French as a Foreign Language, Vacation course, Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Faculty of Higher Business Studies, Faculty of Advanced Business Studies, Faculty of Biology and Medicine and Faculty of Geosciences and Environment.
Accomplishments and Alumni
The university focuses on three main themes, Human and Social Sciences, Life Sciences and Medicine, and Environmental Sciences. The university lays great store by the quality and innovation of its teaching. The university is also a participant of a project aimed at enhancing cooperation and partnership between Switzerland’s French-speaking universities of Lausanne, Neuchatel, the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, and Geneva. The University of Lausanne promotes the use of technologies of information and communication (TIC) and MOOCs. The alumni of the university are Beatrix von Storch (German politician), Bertrand Piccard (Swiss explorer, psychiatrist and environmentalist), Claude Nicollier (first astronaut from Switzerland), and Lauriane Gillieron (Swiss model, actress and beauty queen who was crowned Miss Switzerland 2005).
Student Diversity and Visiting Companies
The total number of students in the university are 13,016 out of which 2,956 are international students. The total number of academic staff is 1,295 of which 598 are international staff. The number of undergraduate degrees awarded is 1,636, and the number of doctoral degrees awarded is 312. A fifth of the students and one-third of the teaching staff are of foreign origin.
