On 4 October 1478 Christian I of Denmark issued a royal decree by which he officially established the University of Copenhagen. In this decree, Christian I set down the rules and laws governing the university. The royal decree elected magistar Peder Albertsen as vice chancellor of the university, and the task was his to employ various learned scholars at the new university and thereby establish its first four faculties: theology, law, medicine and philosophy. The royal decree made the University of Copenhagen enjoy royal patronage from its very beginning. Furthermore, the university was explicitly established as an autonomous institution, giving it a great degree of juridical freedom. As such, the University of Copenhagen was to be administered without royal interference, and it was not subject to the usual laws governing the Danish people.[19]
The University of Copenhagen was dissolved in about 1531 as a result of the spread of Protestantism. It was re-established in 1537 by King Christian III after the Lutheran Reformation. The king charged Johannes Bugenhagen, who came from Wittenberg to Copenhagen to take up a chair of theology, with the drawing up of a new University Charter. The resulting Charter was issued in 1539.[20] Between 1675 and 1788, the university introduced the concept of degree examinations. An examination for theology was added in 1675, followed by law in 1736. By 1788, all faculties required an examination before they would issue a degree.
The first female student was enrolled at the university in 1877. The university underwent explosive growth between 1960 and 1980. The number of students rose from around 6,000 in 1960 to about 26,000 in 1980, with a correspondingly large growth in the number of employees. Buildings built during this time period include the new Zoological Museum, the Hans Christian Ørsted and August Krogh Institutes, the campus centre on Amager Island, and the Panum Institute.
The new university statute instituted in 1970 involved democratisation of the management of the university. It was modified in 1973 and subsequently applied to all higher education institutions in Denmark. The democratisation was later reversed with the 2003 university reforms. Further change in the structure of the university from 1990 to 1993 made a Bachelor's degree programme mandatory in virtually all subjects.
Also in 1993, the law departments broke off from the Faculty of Social Sciences to form a separate Faculty of Law. In 1994, the University of Copenhagen designated environmental studies, north–south relations, and biotechnology as areas of special priority according to its new long-term plan. Starting in 1996 and continuing to the present, the university planned new buildings, including for the University of Copenhagen Faculty of Humanities at Amager (Ørestaden), along with a Biotechnology Centre. By 1999, the student population had grown to exceed 35,000, resulting in the university appointing additional professors and other personnel.
South Campus
In 2003, the revised Danish university law removed faculty, staff and students from the university decision process, creating a top-down control structure that has been described as absolute monarchy, since leaders are granted extensive powers while being appointed exclusively by higher levels in the organization.[22]
In 2005, the Center for Health and Society (Center for Sundhed og Samfund – CSS) opened in central Copenhagen, housing the Faculty of Social Sciences and Institute of Public Health, which until then had been located in various places throughout the city. In May 2006, the university announced further plans to leave many of its old buildings in the inner city of Copenhagen, an area that has been home to the university for more than 500 years. The purpose of this has been to gather the university's many departments and faculties on three larger campuses in order to create a bigger, more concentrated and modern student environment with better teaching facilities, as well as to save money on rent and maintenance of the old buildings. The concentration of facilities on larger campuses also allows for more inter-disciplinary cooperation; for example, the Departments of Political Science and Sociology are now located in the same facilities at CSS and can pool resources more easily.
In January 2007, the University of Copenhagen merged with the Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University and the Danish University of Pharmaceutical Science. The two universities were converted into faculties under the University of Copenhagen, and were renamed as the Faculty of Life Sciences and the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences. In January 2012, the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences and the veterinary third of the Faculty of Life Sciences merged with the Faculty of Health Sciences forming the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences – and the other two thirds of the Faculty of Life Sciences were merged into the Faculty of Science.
The university has four main campus areas that are located in the Capital Region (three in Copenhagen and one in Frederiksberg):[23]
City Campus – home to the Faculty of Social Sciences and Central Administration as well as parts of the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences and the Faculty of Science.
Frederiksberg Campus – home to sections of the Faculty of Science and the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences.
The Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences and the Faculty of Science also use the Taastrup Campus, which is located in Taastrup on the western outskirts of Copenhagen.[23] The Faculty of Science also has facilities in Helsingør, Hørsholm and Nødebo.[23]
The university is governed by a board consisting of 11 members: 6 members recruited outside the university form the majority of the board, 2 members are appointed by the scientific staff, 1 member is appointed by the administrative staff, and 2 members are appointed by the university students. The rector, the prorector and the director of the university are appointed by the university board. The rector in turn appoints directors of the different parts of the central administration and deans of the different faculties. The deans appoint heads of 50 departments. There is no faculty senate and faculty is not involved in the appointment of rector, deans, or department heads. Hence the university has no faculty governance, although there are elected Academic Boards at faculty level who advise the deans.[24]As of 2018[update], the governing body manages an annual budget of about DKK 8.9 billion.[4]
The university is organized into six faculties and about 100 departments and research centres. The university employs about 5,600 academic staff and 4,400 technical and administrative staff. The six faculties are:
The total number of enrolled students is about 40,000, including about 23,000 undergraduate students and 17,000 graduate students. The university has an international graduate talent programme which provides grants for international Ph.D., students and a tenure track carrier system. It operates about fifty master's programmes taught in English, and has arranged about 150 exchange agreements with other institutions and 800 Erasmus agreements. Each year there are about 1,700 incoming exchange students, 2,000 outbound exchange students and 4,000 international degree-seeking students. About 3,000 PhD students study there each year.
Most university students stay in privately owned dormitories (kollegier in Danish) or apartments in Copenhagen. There are five dormitories that are partially administered by the university; however, only students who have passed at least two years of studies are considered for admission. These are normally referred to as the old dormitories, and they consist of: Regensen, Elers' Kollegium, Borchs Kollegium, Hassagers Kollegium, and Valkendorfs Kollegium. The University of Copenhagen also offers Carlsberg Foundation researcher apartments for a duration of 6 months to 3 years for visiting research and academic research staff who affiliated with research projects funded by the Carlsberg Foundation.
The Housing Foundation Copenhagen is a separate commercial entity to the University of Copenhagen[25] run by Chairman Erik Bisgaard Madsen[26] and a board of directors.[27] The Housing Foundation Copenhagen provides short-term housing exclusively for university international students ( sometimes Danish students), university staff and guest researchers.[28] Their central office is based at South Campus. The Housing Foundation Copenhagen has received considerable criticism for the exploitation of international students for business profits and poor living conditions,[29][30] and most recently the refusal of shortening contracts for many international students affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.[31]
The university's oldest known seal dates from a 1531 letter, it depicts Saint Peter with a key and a book. In a circle around him is the text
Sigillum Universitatis Hafniensis A Christiano III Rege Restauravit
(i.e. Seal of the University of Copenhagen, reestablished by King Christian III).
The 1537 seal is very similar to the current seal, which was made in 2000 and is shown at the top of this page. The text is different and the crowned shield shows the coat of arms of Denmark (as has been the case since 1820, when the heraldic reference to Norway was removed). The text is
Sigillum Universitatis Hafniensis
Fundatæ 1479
Reformatæ 1537
Seal of the University of Copenhagen
Founded 1479
Reformed 1537
In addition to the university seal, each of the university's six faculties carry seals of their own.
The seal of 1531 (left) and the seal of 1537 (right)
Over the course of its history, a sizeable number of University of Copenhagen alumni have become notable in their fields, both academic, and in the wider world.[46]
Thomas Fincke (1561–1656), Danish mathematician and physicist
Caspar Bartholin (1585–1629), professor in medicine and theology. Author of textbooks on anatomy and the discoverer of the workings of the olfactory nerve.
Olaus Wormius (1588–1655), Danish physician and antiquarian
"Forskning og formidling"[Research and circulation] (in Danish). University of Copenhagen. Archived from the original on 26 July 2017. Retrieved 16 January 2015.
Kommunikation (5 October 2022). "Nobelpristagere". universitetshistorie.ku.dk (in Danish). Archived from the original on 16 October 2022. Retrieved 6 October 2022.
Pinborg, Jan (1979). Universitas Studii Haffnensis. Stiftelsesdokumenter og Statutter 1479. English Translation by Brian Patrick McGuire. University of Copenhagen. pp.84–87. ISBN87-87848-00-7.
Fink-Jensen, Morten (2020). The Foundation and Regulations of the University of Copenhagen 1539. Edited with Introduction and Notes. English Translation by Peter Fisher. Copenhagen: Gads Forlag. ISBN978-87-93229-90-7.
Gilman, Daniel Coit; Peck, Harry Thurston; Colby, Frank Moore (1905). The new international encyclopaedia. Dodd, Mead. p.386. In 1807, the British fleet bombarded Copenhagen during the Bombardment of Copenhagen, destroying most of the university's buildings.
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