Founded in 1537, the University of Lausanne is composed of seven faculties and caters for more than 14'000 students and 2'700 researchers. The UNIL regularly features among the 200 leading universities in international rankings.
UNIL (University of Lausanne) was founded in 1537 and its student population now reaches 17,000, with close to 130 nationalities. The University of Lausanne offers a range of courses in humanities, social sciences, environmental sciences, life sciences and medicine. Three of its seven faculties are the only ones of their kind in Switzerland: law and criminal justice, biology and medicine, and geosciences and environment. A third of the master's degree courses are offered jointly with other Swiss tertiary-education establishments, and nearly 7'000 hours of teaching a year are exchanged with the EPFL. It is very cosmopolitan: one fifth of students and one third of teachers at the UNIL are from other countries.The UNIL has original programmes that are representative of its interdisciplinary approach, including the master in forensic science, the master in behaviour, evolution and conservation, the interfaculty master in legal issues, crime and security of information technologies, and the master in policy and public management.Formerly based in the town centre, the UNIL is now located amidst the lush greenery of the Dorigny site, by the lake. This exceptional setting is conducive not only to study, but also to the sporting and cultural activities provided for students and the general public by the UNIL.Life sciences and social sciencesThe UNIL has 2'500 researchers working inside its institutes and laboratories. The synergies produced by having the UNIL, the Vaudois University Hospital Centre (CHUV) and the Institute of Technology concentrated on this one site in Lausanne are the source of an extraordinary dynamism in the domain of life sciences. As for social sciences, the arrival in 2007 of the Swiss Foundation for Research in Social Sciences (FORS), closely associated with the UNIL, makes Lausanne the national centre for research in this particular field.Several personalities studied at UNIL, among whom Claude Nicollier, a former astronaut, Bertrand Piccard, who created Solar Impulse, and Jacques Dubochet, Nobel Prize in chemistry.
