WORLD UNIVERSITY RANKING

Hong Kong Polytechnic University

2010-03-15T12:23:00.001+08:00

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU, traditional Chinese: 香港理工大學) specialises in professional education in Hong Kong. The University’s teaching units are grouped under six faculties and two schools; the Faculty of Applied Science and Textiles, Faculty of Business, Faculty of Construction and Land Use, Faculty of Engineering, Faculty of Health and Social Sciences, Faculty of Humanities, alongside with School of Design and School of Hotel and Tourism Management.

The University is the sole provider of full-time degree or higher diploma programmes in Hong Kong in the following areas: design, engineering physics, fashion and textiles, geomatics, international shipping and transport logistics, medical laboratory science, optometry, occupational therapy, physiotherapy and radiography.

PolyU is strategically located in Hung Hom, Kowloon, on a site of approximately 93,500 square metres adjacent to the Cross Harbour Tunnel. There has been extensive development and rapid expansion since the last 10 years. The University is the largest UGC-funded tertiary institution in terms of number of students. A wide range of courses which directly meets industrial, commercial and community needs is offered. In addition to meeting Hong Kong's manpower requirements, PolyU also makes significant contributions towards the territory's success by providing the public and private sectors with its expanding range of consultancy, professional training and applied research services. Through these activities, the University maintains a strong partnership with the business and industrial sectors.

It is a prime aim of the University to equip students not only with professional competency but also the ability of independent thinking, good communication skills and a global outlook. The University also implements the credit-based system, which allows flexibility to students in choice of subjects and pace of studies.

History

Founded in 1937 as the Government Trade School. Situated in Wood Road, Wanchai, the School was the first publicly funded, post-secondary technical institution in Hong Kong.

After World War II, the School became the Hong Kong Technical College in 1947, offering both full-time and part-time courses. The year 1957 saw the opening of the new premises of the College in Hung Hom.

The Hong Kong Polytechnic was formally established on 1 August 1972, taking over the campus and staff of the Hong Kong Technical College. Its mandate was to provide professionally-oriented education.

Having gained approval from the University and Polytechnic Grants Committee for self-accreditation of degree programmes, the Institution assumed full university status on 25 November 1994, changing its name to The Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

Today, PolyU is an institution of higher learning and offers more than 130 postgraduate, undergraduate and sub-degree programmes, supported by more than 1,000 academic and research staff members from different parts of the world.

Faculties and Schools

Faculty of Applied Science and Textiles Faculty of Business
Faculty of Construction and Land Use Faculty of Engineering
Faculty of Health and Social Sciences
Faculty of Humanities
School of Design
School of Hotel and Tourism Management

Hong Kong Polytechnic University ranked 195th in the 2009 THES-QS World University Ranking

University of Amsterdam

2010-03-15T11:08:00.003+08:00

The University of Amsterdam (Dutch: Universiteit van Amsterdam) is a comprehensive research university located in the heart of the city of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. With over 28,000 students and around 5,000 staff, the UvA is one of the major universities in Europe. There are seven faculties: Humanities, Social and Behavioral sciences, Economy, Law, Science, Medicine and Dentistry. It has a strong internationalization programme and offers over 85 English Master programmes taught in English, as well as a number of Dutch and English language courses. The University of Amsterdam (UvA) should not be confused with Amsterdam's second university, the VU University. In 2006, the UvA joined the League of European Research Universities (LERU). The universities work together to invest in European 'centres of excellence', with the aim of maintaining Europe's strong position in the global knowledge economy.

History

The commonly-held predecessor of the University of Amsterdam, the Athenaeum Illustre (Latin - the illustrious Athenaeum) was founded in the 14th-century Agnietenkapel in Amsterdam in 1632, to educate students in History and Philosophy. Professors lectured publicly and tutored privately. In January 1632 two internationally acclaimed scholars, Caspar Barlaeus and Gerardus Vossius, held their inaugural speeches here. In the course of the seventeenth century, Law, Medicine and Theology were introduced in the curriculum. Alumni (whilst it was still the Athenaeum) include Cornelis Petrus Tiele.

The Athenaeum remained a small institution until the nineteenth century, with no more than 250 students and eight teachers. This situation changed only slowly. In 1815 the Athenaeum Illustre was officially recognised as an institute of higher education. In 1877, Athenuem Illustre is reorganised to become the university of the municipality of Amsterdam. It became the Gemeentelijke Universiteit van Amsterdam (GU or 'Municipal University') and it received the right to confer doctoral degrees.

The professors were appointed by the city council and the mayor presided over the university administration. Because the Amsterdam city council was noted for its progressive politics this scheme guaranteed a large degree of intellectual freedom for the university.

Very little then changed until 1961, when the national government took control of financial responsibility. The university ceased to be the Gemeentelijke Universiteit and finally became the Universiteit van Amsterdam.

In 1969 the university became nationwide news when the university's administrative center at the Maagdenhuis was occupied by students who wanted more democratic influence. During the seventies and eighties the university was often the target of nationwide student actions.

Faculties

The University of Amsterdam has seven faculties which conduct education and research in the humanities, social and behavioural sciences, economics and business, law, science, medicine and dentistry. Each faculty is headed by a dean. Education and research take place in a variety of departments and institutes within the faculties. Each faculty also has a central services department which is responsible for its operational management.

Faculty of Dentistry

Faculty of Economics and Business

Faculty of Humanities

Faculty of Law

Faculty of Medicine

Faculty of Science

Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences

The UvA aims to offer an inspiring, broadly-oriented international academic environment where both staff and students can develop their capacities optimally. The UvA is characterised by a critical, creative and international atmosphere, and is open-minded and strongly engaged with society. Because the UvA is located in both historic and modern buildings spread throughout Amsterdam, the University forms an integral part of the city.

University of Amsterdam ranked 49th in the 2009 THES-QS World University Ranking

World University Ranking 2009

2010-03-15T10:20:00.005+08:00

WORLD TOP 200 UNIVERSITIES YEAR 2009

RANK	UNIVERSITY	COUNTRY
1	Harvard University	US
2	University of Cambridge	UK
3	Yale University	US
4	University College London	UK
5=	Imperial College London	UK
5=	University of Oxford	UK
7	University of Chicago	US
8	Princeton University	US
9	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	US
10	California Institute of Technology	US
11	Columbia University	US
12	University of Pennsylvania	US
13	Johns Hopkins University	US
14	Duke University	US
15	Cornell University	US
16	Stanford University	US
17	Australian National University	Australia
18	McGill University	Canada
19	University of Michigan	US
20=	University of Edinburgh	UK
20=	ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology)	Switzerland
22	University of Tokyo	Japan
23	King’s College London	UK
24	University of Hong Kong	Hong Kong
25	Kyoto University	Japan
26	University of Manchester	UK
27	Carnegie Mellon University	US
28	Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris	France
29	University of Toronto	Canada
30	National University of Singapore	Singapore
31	Brown University	US
32=	University of California, Los Angeles	US
32=	Northwestern University	US
34	University of Bristol	UK
35	Hong Kong University of Science and Technology	Hong Kong
36=	Ecole Polytechnique	France
36=	University of Melbourne	Australia
36=	University of Sydney	Australia
39	University of California, Berkeley	US
40	University of British Columbia	Canada
41	University of Queensland	Australia
42	Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne	Switzerland
43=	Osaka University	Japan
43=	Trinity College Dublin	Ireland
45	Monash University	Australia
46	Chinese University of Hong Kong	Hong Kong
47=	University of New South Wales	Australia
47=	Seoul National University	South Korea
49=	University of Amsterdam	Netherlands
49=	Tsinghua University	China
51	University of Copenhagen	Denmark
52=	New York University	US
52=	Peking University	China
54	Boston University	US
55=	Technical University of Munich	Germany
55=	Tokyo Institute of Technology	Japan
57	Heidelberg University	Germany
58	University of Warwick	UK
59	University of Alberta	Canada
60	Leiden University	Netherlands
61=	University of Auckland	New Zealand
61=	University of Wisconsin-Madison	US
63=	Aarhus University	Denmark
63=	University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign	US
65	Katholieke Universiteit Leuven	Belgium
66	University of Birmingham	UK
67=	London School of Economics	UK
67=	Lund University	Sweden
69	Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology	South Korea
70=	Utrecht University	Netherlands
70=	University of York	UK
72	University of Geneva	Switzerland
73=	Nanyang Technological University	Singapore
73=	Washington University in St Louis	US
75	Uppsala University	Sweden
76=	University of California, San Diego	US
76=	University of Texas at Austin	US
78	University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill	US
79	University of Glasgow	UK
80	University of Washington	US
81	University of Adelaide	Australia
82	University of Sheffield	UK
83	Delft University of Technology	Netherlands
84	University of Western Australia	Australia
85	Dartmouth College	US
86	Georgia Institute of Technology	US
87=	Purdue University	US
87=	University of St Andrews	UK
89	University College Dublin	Ireland
90	Emory University	US
91	University of Nottingham	UK
92=	Nagoya University	Japan
92=	University of Zurich	Switzerland
94	Free University of Berlin	Germany
95=	University of Southampton	UK
95=	National Taiwan University	Taiwan
97	Tohoku University	Japan
98	Ludwig-Maximilians University, Munich	Germany
99	University of Leeds	UK
100	Rice University	US
101	University of Oslo	Norway
102	Hebrew University of Jerusalem	Israel
103=	Durham University	UK
103=	Fudan University	China
105	University of Minnesota	US
106	University of California, Santa Barbara	US
107	Université de Montréal	Canada
108=	University of Basel	Switzerland
108=	University of California, Davis	US
108=	Erasmus University Rotterdam	Netherlands
108=	University of Helsinki	Finland
112	University of Southern California	US
113	University of Waterloo	Canada
114=	University of Pittsburgh	US
114=	Tel Aviv University	Israel
116	Maastricht University	Netherlands
117	Université Pierre-et-Marie-Curie Paris VI	France
118	Queen’s University	Canada
119	Case Western Reserve University	US
120=	Eindhoven University of Technology	Netherlands
120=	Pennsylvania State University	US
122=	Freiburg University	Germany
122=	University of Maryland, College Park	US
124	City University of Hong Kong	Hong Kong
125	University of Otago	New Zealand
126=	Université Catholique de Louvain	Belgium
126=	Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon	France
128	University of Virginia	US
129=	University of Aberdeen	UK
129=	Georgetown University	US
129=	Ohio State University	US
132=	Technion – Israel Institute of Technology	Israel
132=	University of Vienna	Austria
134	Pohang University of Science and Technology	South Korea
135	Cardiff University	UK
136	University of Ghent	Belgium
137	University of Liverpool	UK
138=	Chulalongkorn University	Thailand
138=	University of Groningen	Netherlands
140	Vanderbilt University	US
141	University of Rochester	US
142	Keio University	Japan
143	McMaster University	Canada
144=	University of Bath	UK
144=	University of Bergen	Norway
146=	University of Cape Town	South Africa
146=	Humboldt University of Berlin	Germany
148	Waseda University	Japan
149=	University of Calgary	Canada
149=	Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen	Germany
151=	University of Western Ontario	Canada
151=	Yonsei University	South Korea
153	Shanghai Jiao Tong University	China
154	University of Science and Technology of China	China
155=	Kyushu University	Japan
155=	Lomonosov Moscow State University	Russia
155=	Wageningen University	Netherlands
158	Newcastle University	UK
159	Technical University of Denmark	Denmark
160	Tufts University	US
161	University of California, Irvine	US
162	Lancaster University	UK
163	Indian Institute of Technology Bombay	India
164	Queen Mary, University of London	UK
165	VU University Amsterdam	Netherlands
166=	University of Arizona	US
166=	University of Sussex	UK
168=	University of Lausanne	Switzerland
168=	Nanjing University	China
168=	Saint-Petersburg State University	Russia
171=	University of Barcelona	Spain
171=	Hokkaido University	Japan
173	Stony Brook University	US
174=	University of Bologna	Italy
174=	KTH, Royal Institute of Technology	Sweden
174=	University of Tsukuba	Japan
177=	University of Antwerp	Belgium
177=	University of Athens	Greece
179	Texas A&M University	US
180	Universiti Malaya	Malaysia
181	Indian Institute of Technology Delhi	India
182	Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule Aachen	Germany
183	Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey	US
184	University of Karlsruhe	Germany
185	University of Gothenburg	Sweden
186=	University of Colorado at Boulder	US
186=	University of Göttingen	Germany
188	University of Canterbury	New Zealand
189	Macquarie University	Australia
190	National Autonomous University of Mexico	Mexico
191=	Université Libre de Bruxelles	Belgium
191=	University of Reading	UK
193=	University of Bern	Switzerland
193=	Indiana University Bloomington	US
195	Hong Kong Polytechnic University	Hong Kong
196=	University of Leicester	UK
196=	Simon Fraser University	Canada
198	Chalmers University of Technology	Sweden
199	University of Notre Dame	US
200	University of Twente	Netherlands

Source : http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2009/results

University of Gothenburg

2010-01-25T09:20:00.004+08:00

The University of Gothenburg has approximately 50,000 students (25 000 full-time students) and 5,000 employees. It is one of the major universities in Europe. With its eight faculties and approximately sixty departments, the University of Gothenburg is also the most wide-ranging and versatile university in Sweden, offering unique opportunities for cooperation and development.

The distinctive characteristic of university education at the University of Gothenburg is the close interaction between teaching and research. Students are kept informed of the latest developments in the field they are studying and researchers gain inspiration from their students expectations and needs. At the University of Gothenburg research and teaching are regarded as equally important, and there is ongoing pedagogical development work.

In an international perspective too, the University of Gothenburg is unusually comprehensive, with cutting-edge research in a number of dynamic research areas. Cooperation with Chalmers University of Technology, Sahlgrenska University Hospital, society at large and trade and industry has been consistently strengthened and intensified over recent years, as have international contacts and collaborative projects with partners abroad.

History

The University of Gothenburg was founded as Göteborgs högskola (Gothenburg College) in 1891. In 1907 it was granted the same status as Uppsala University and Lund University by the Swedish government. Over the course of time, it as merged with a number of previously independent academic institutions in the city. It was granted the rights of a full university by the Swedish government in 1954, following the merger of the Göteborgs högskola with the Medicinhögskolan i Göteborg (Gothenburg Medical School), thus becoming Sweden's third-oldest university.

In 2005, the originally separate Gothenburg School of Economics and Commercial Law became part of the University of Gothenburg. Sahlgrenska University Hospital is associated with the university as a teaching hospital.

In the 1990s the School of Economics and the Academy of Music, Drama and Opera have moved to new buildings in the city centre. A new campus for the Faculty of Education (teacher training) was opened in central Gothenburg in 2006.

The University of Gothenburg is a pronounced city university, that is most of its facilities are within the city centre of Gothenburg. The main building as well as most faculties are located in the central part of Gothenburg.

Faculties

* Artistic studies (Konstnärliga fakulteten)
o design and crafts
o film school
o literary composition
o photography
o scene and music
o Göteborg Organ Art Center
o Valand School of Fine Arts

* Education (Utbildningsvetenskapliga fakulteten) offers teacher training courses

* Humanities (Humanistiska fakulteten)
o cultural studies
o history
o literature, history of ideas, religion
o modern languages
o philosophy, linguistics, theory of science
o Swedish

* Information Technology (IT fakulteten)
o applied information technology
o computer science and engineering

* Natural Sciences
o botany
o cell and molecular biology
o physics
o earth sciences
o chemistry
o kulturvård
o marine ecology
o mathematics
o environmental science
o zoology

* Sahlgrenska Academy is the university's medical school

* the School of Business, Economics and Law (Handelshögskolan vid Göteborgs universitet) is a combined business school and law school
o economics
o business administration
o law
o cultural geography
o national economy and statistics

* Social Sciences (Samhällsvetenskapliga fakulteten)
o peace and development studies
o public administration
o journalism and mass communication
o psychology
o social anthropology
o social work
o sociology
o political science

University of Gothenburg ranked 185th in the 2009 THES-QS World University Ranking

University of Malaya

2010-01-18T08:33:00.002+08:00

The University of Malaya (Abbreviation: UM; Malay: Universiti Malaya) is the oldest university in Malaysia. The university motto is Ilmu Punca Kemajuan (English: Knowledge is the Source of Progress).

It is recognised as one of the top universities in Malaysia and in the top 200 universities of the world.

History

Beginnings

In September 1904, Tan Jiak Kim led a group of representatives of the Chinese and other non-European communities, and petitioned the Governor of the Straits Settlements, Sir John Anderson, to establish a medical school in Singapore. Tan, who was the first president of the Straits Chinese British Association, managed to raise $87,077, of which the largest amount of $12,000 came from himself. On 3 July 1905, the medical school was founded, and was known as the Straits and Federated Malay States Government Medical School. The medical library was first housed in the students' reading room within the school, converted from the vacant old female lunatic asylum in Sepoy Lines.

In 1912, the medical school received an endowment of $120,000 from the King Edward VII Memorial Fund, started by Dr Lim Boon Keng. Subsequently on 18 November 1913, the name of the school was changed to the King Edward VII Medical School. In 1921, it was again changed to the King Edward VII College of Medicine to reflect its academic status.
In 1929, Raffles College was established to promote arts and social sciences at tertiary level for Malayan students.
Establishment of the university

Two decades later, Raffles College was merged with the King Edward VII College of Medicine to form the University of Malaya on 8 October 1949. The two institutions were merged to provide for the higher education needs of the Federation of Malaya and Singapore.

The growth of UM was very rapid during the first decade of its establishment and resulted in the setting up of two autonomous divisions in 1959, one located in Singapore and the other in Kuala Lumpur.

Growth and consolidation

In 1960, the governments of the Federation of Malaysia and Singapore indicated their desire to change the status of the Divisions into that of a national university. Legislation was passed in 1961 establishing the former Kuala Lumpur division as the University of Malaya while the Singapore division was renamed the University of Singapore, the predecessor of today's National University of Singapore, on January 1, 1962.

On June 16, 1962, the university celebrated the installation of its first Chancellor, Tunku Abdul Rahman, Malaysia's first Prime Minister. The first Vice-Chancellor was former Dean, Sir Alexander Oppenheim, the world renowned mathematician who formulated the Oppenheim conjecture in 1929. When Oppenheim left in 1965 with no successor in sight, Rayson Huang who later went on to become the first Asian Vice-Chancellor of the University of Hong Kong, was asked to take over as the Acting Vice Chancellor. He served in that capacity for 12 months but declined reappointment in order to return to academic pursuits.

Chin Fung Kee, an authority in geotechnical engineering, replaced Huang as Acting Vice-Chancellor until the university succeeded in filling the position in 1967 by the appointment of James H.E. Griffiths. A distinguished physicist and a fellow of Magdalen College, Griffiths was also the former head of Clarendon Laboratory of Oxford University and one of the discoverers of ferromagnetic resonance.

Malaysianization

In 1968, economist Ungku Abdul Aziz succeeded Griffiths as Vice-Chancellor, making him the second Malaysian after Chin to be elevated to the highest executive office in UM and the first Malaysian to be appointed as full Vice-Chancellor. This development was a precursor to the introduction of ethnic quotas into public universities with the introduction of the New Economic Policy in 1971.

On May 1, 2006, the first woman Vice-Chancellor when former Dean of the Faculty of Law, Universiti Malaya and later assistant governor of Bank Negara Malaysia, Rafiah Salim, was appointed to the position.

Rankings

The THES - QS World University Rankings has ranked UM in the top 200 universities of the world, although its position has varied from 89 to 246. It was ranked 89, 169, 192, 246, 230 and 180 for the years 2005 to 2009 respectively, and these fluctuations were perceived as a progressive drop and became an object of public questioning and controversy about the perceived declining standards of Malaysian universities and the apparent lackadaisical attitude of UM in addressing long standing issues. This prompted the Ministry of Higher Education to establish its own competitive ranking system between Malaysian public universities known as the Rating System for Malaysian Higher Education Institutions or SETARA following an Academic Reputation Survey conducted the year before. The results of the first SETARA exercise were published in 2008 and University of Malaya came out as the top university in the country. It was the only university which achieved a rating of 5 (out of maximum 6).

Campuses

UM has three campuses, two located in Kuala Lumpur and the other located in Kelantan.

Main
The Main Campus is located in the suburb of Lembah Pantai, southwest of Kuala Lumpur. The campus has an area of 750 acres (3.0 km²) and is the original campus of the Kuala Lumpur division of the original University of Malaya. Most of the main administrative buildings and faculties are located here. The 80 hectare Rimba Ilmu Botanical Gardens are also located within the campus.

City
The City Campus is located in the Bukit Persekutuan area of Kuala Lumpur approximately 15 minutes away from the Main Campus. The University of Malaya Centre for Continuing Education, Institute of Principalship Studies, International Institute of Public Policy and Management, Graduate School of Business and the City Campus library are located here.

Branch
The Academy’s branch campus in Nilam Puri, Kelantan offers courses in Islamic foundation studies in Shariah, Usuluddin, Islamic Studies and Islamic Education with Science.

List of Faculty

Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
Faculty of Business and Accountancy
Faculty of Computer Science and Information Technology
Faculty of Dentistry
Faculty of Economics and Administration
Faculty of Education
Faculty of Languages and Linguistics
Faculty of Law
Faculty of Medicine
Faculty of Science
Faculty of Built Environment

University of Malaya ranked 180th in the 2009 THES-QS World University Ranking

University of Tsukuba

2010-01-17T08:45:00.002+08:00

University of Tsukuba (筑波大学 Tsukuba daigaku?) is located in the city of Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture in the Kantō region of Japan. The University has 28 college clusters and schools with a total of around 15,000 students (in 2003).

The current university was established in October, 1973. A forerunner of this university was Tokyo University of Education (東京教育大学 Tōkyō kyōiku daigaku?) originally founded in 1872 as one of the oldest universities in Japan, Tokyo Shihan Gakko.

The university is ranked one of the top Asian universities (9th to 17th) in the “Academic Ranking of World Universities” and is ranked 102-150 in the world. Furthermore, Global University Ranking places the university 41st globally.
The University of Tsukuba has had several Nobel Prize winners so far, namely Leo Esaki, Hideki Shirakawa and Sin-Itiro Tomonaga.

The University of Tsukuba is famous in the research of physical education, physics and economics.[citation needed]
On July 11, 1991 Japanese translator Hitoshi Igarashi was stabbed to death at the University for translating Salman Rushdie's most famous novel The Satanic Verses.

In October 2002, the University of Tsukuba merged with the University of Library and Information Science (ULIS, 図書館情報大学 Toshokan jōhō daigaku?). The School of Library and Information Science and the Graduate School of Library and Information - Media Studies were established.

In May 2008, the Tokyo International Conference on African Development became an opportunity for the African Development Bank (AfDB) and universities in Japan to promote partnership on higher education, science and technology. Donald Kaberuka, the President of AfDB and the President of Tsukuba University signed a memorandum of understanding during the three-day event.

Tsukuba university was established in October 1973, due to the relocation of its antecedent, the Tokyo University of Education, to the Tsukuba area. As the first comprehensive university in Japan to be established under a country-wide university reform plan, the University has featured "Openness" with "New Systems for Education and Research" under a "New University Administration." The university reform plays a major role in our continuing effort for improvemnet. We are striving to create a unique, active, and internationally competitive university with superlative education and research facilities.

Academics

School of Humanities and Culture
• College of Humanities
• College of Comparative Culture
• College of Japanese Language and Culture

School of Social and International Studies
• College of Social Sciences
• College of International Studies

School of Human Sciences
• College of Education
• College of Psychology
• College of Disability Sciences

School of Life and Environmental Sciences
• College of Biological Sciences
• College of Agro-Biological Resource Sciences
• College of Geoscience

School of Science and Engineering
• College of Mathematics
• College of Physics
• College of Chemistry
• College of Engineering Sciences
• College of Engineering Systems
• College of Policy and Planning Sciences

School of Informatics
• College of Information Science
• College of Media Arts, Science and Technology
• College of Knowledge and Library Sciences

School of Medicine and Medical Sciences
• School of Medicine
• School of Nursing
• School of Medical Sciences

School of Health and Physical Education

School of Art and Design

University of Tsukuba ranked 174th in the 2009 THES-QS World University Ranking

Saint-petersburg State University

2010-01-17T08:25:00.004+08:00

Saint Petersburg State University (Russian: Санкт-Петербургский государственный университет, Sankt-Peterburgskiy gosudarstvenny universitet) is a Russian federal state-owned higher education institution based in Saint Petersburg and one of the oldest, largest and most prestigious universities in Russia.

It is made up of 20 specialized faculties, 13 research institutes, Canada College, Faculty of Military Studies, and a Chair of Physical Culture and Sports. As of 2004, the university had a teaching staff of 4,055. The university has two main campuses: on Vasilievsky Island and in Peterhof. During the Soviet period, it was known as Leningrad State University (Ленинградский государственный университет)

Brief History

In the period between 1803 and 1819, Saint Petersburg University officially did not exist; the institution founded by Peter the Great, the Saint Petersburg Academy, had already been disbanded, because the new 1803 charter of the Academy of Sciences stipulated that there should be no educational institutions affiliated with it. The Petersburg Pedagogical Institute, renamed the Main Pedagogical Institute in 1814, was established in 1804 and occupied a part of the Twelve Collegia building.

On February 8, 1819 (O.S.), Alexander I of Russia reorganized the Main Pedagogical Institute into Saint Petersburg University, which at that time consisted of three faculties: Faculty of Philosophy and Law, Faculty of History and Philology and Faculty of Physics and Mathematics, and enrolled several dozen students. Since there is some degree of continuity between the Academy, the Pedagogical Institute, and the University, Saint Petersburg State University may be considered the oldest university in Russia. In 1821 the university was renamed Saint Petersburg Imperial University. In 1823 most of the university moved from the Twelve Collegia to the southern part of the city beyond the Fontanka. In 1824 a version of the charter of Moscow University became the first charter of the Saint Petersburg Imperial University. In 1829 there were 19 full professors and 169 full-time and part-time students in the university. In 1830 Tsar Nicholas passed the entire building of the Twelve Collegia back to the university, and the courses returned there. In 1835 a new Charter of the Imperial Universities of Russia was approved. According to it during the following years the Faculty of Law was established and the Faculty of History and Philology and Faculty of Physics and Mathematics were merged into the Faculty of Philosophy as the 1st and 2nd Departments, respectively.

In 1849 after the Spring of Nations the Senate of the Russian Empire decreed that the Rector should be appointed by the Minister of National Enlightenment rather than elected by the Assembly of the university. However, Pyotr Pletnyov was reappointed Rector and ultimately became the longest-serving rector of Saint Petersburg University (1840–1861).
In 1850 the 1st and 2nd Departments of the Faculty of Philosophy were turned back into the Faculty of History and Philosophy and Faculty of Physics and Mathematics, respectively, the latter specializing not only in mathematics and physics, but also in other natural sciences, such as biology and chemistry. The Oriental studies were separated from the Faculty of History and Philology, and in 1855 the fourth faculty, Faculty of Oriental Languages, was opened.

In 1914 with the start of the First World War, the university was renamed Petrograd Imperial University after its namesake city. In 1915 a branch of the university was opened in Perm, which later became Perm State University. The Assembly of Petrograd Imperial University openly welcomed the February Revolution of 1917, which put an end to the Russian monarchy, and the university came to be known as just Petrograd University. However, after the October Revolution of 1917, the staff and administration of the university were initially vocally opposed to the Bolshevik takeover of power and reluctant to cooperate with the Narkompros. Later in 1917–1922 during the Russian Civil War some of the staff suspected of counter-revolutionary sympathies suffered imprisonment (e.g. Lev Shcherba in 1919), execution, or exile abroad on the so-called Philosophers' ships in 1922 (e.g. Nikolai Lossky). Furthermore, the entire staff suffered from hunger and extreme poverty during those years.

In 1918 the university was renamed 1st Petrograd State University, and in 1919 the Narkompros merged it with the 2nd PSU (former Psychoneurological Institute) and 3rd PSU (former Bestuzhev Higher Courses for Women) into Petrograd State University. In 1919 the Faculty of Social Science was established by the Narkompros instead of the Faculty of History and Philology, Faculty of Oriental Languages and Faculty of Law. Nicholas Marr became the first Dean of the new faculty. Chemist Alexey Favorsky became the Dean of the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics. Rabfaks and free university courses were opened on the basis of the university to provide mass education. In the fall of 1920, as observed by freshman student Alice Rosenbaum, enrollment was open and the majority of the students were anti-communist including, until removed, a few vocal opponents of the regime. Seeing that they were educating "class enemies", a purge was conducted in 1922 based on the class background of the students and all students, other than seniors, with a bourgeois background were expelled.

During the 1920s the university, like other higher education institutions in the Soviet Union, became subject to educational experimentation. The structure and status of the faculties and departments of the university underwent major changes. Many of them were merged, split or renamed, new subdivisions were established, independent institutes were merged into the university as faculties, sometimes only to be restored to their old status a few years later.

In 1949–1950 several professors died in prison during the investigation of the Leningrad Affair fabricated by the central Soviet leadership, and the Minister of Education of the RSFSR, former rector Alexander Voznesensky, was executed.

In 1961 the Faculty of Journalism split from the Faculty of Philology. In 1966 the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union decided to build a new suburban campus in Petrodvorets for most of the mathematics and natural science faculties. The relocation of the faculties had been completed by the 1990s.

The Faculty of Psychology split from the Faculty of Philosophy in 1966. In 1969 the Presidium of the Supreme Council of the Soviet Union awarded the university with the Order of the Red Banner of Labour. The Faculty of Applied Mathematics and Control Processes was split from the Faculty of Mathematics and Mechanics in 1969.

In 1989 the Faculty of Sociology was opened. In 1991 the university was renamed back to Saint Petersburg State University after its namesake city. During the 1990s three new faculties were opened: the Faculty of Management in 1993, the Faculty of International Relations in 1994 and the Faculty of Medicine in 1995.

Academics

SPbSU is made up of 20 specialized faculties (departments), which are:
• the Faculty of Applied Mathematics and Control Processes (*rus)
• the Faculty of Biology and Soil Studies (*rus)
• the Faculty of Chemistry (*rus)
• the Faculty of Economics (*rus)
• the Faculty of Geography and Geoecology (*rus)
• the Faculty of Geology (*rus)
• the Faculty of History (*rus)
• the Department of International Relations (*rus | *eng)
• the Faculty of Journalism (*rus | *eng)
• the Faculty of Law (*rus)
• the Faculty of Management (Graduate School of Management) (*eng)
• the Faculty of Mathematics and Mechanics (*rus)
• the Faculty of Medicine
• the Faculty of Oriental Studies (*rus)
• the Faculty of Philology and Arts (*rus)
• the Faculty of Philosophy (*rus)
• the Faculty of Physics (*rus)
• the Faculty of Political Science
• the Faculty of Psychology (*rus)
• the Faculty of Sociology (*rus)

There is also a Faculty of Military Studies and a Chair of Physical Culture and Sports.
( Information taken from wikipedia.com)

St Petersburg state university ranked 168th in the 2009 THES-QS World University Ranking

Yonsei University

2010-01-13T14:08:00.004+08:00

Yonsei University (연세대학교; 延世大學校) (Korean pronunciation: [jənseː]) is a Christian private research university, located in Seoul, South Korea. Established in 1885, it is one of the oldest universities in South Korea and is widely regarded as one of the top three comprehensive universities in the country. In 2009 the university was ranked 151st in the world by the British university evaluation agency Times and Quacquarelli Symonds.

The university was formally established in January, 1957 through the union of Yonhi College (연희전문학교; 延禧專門學校) and Severance Union Medical College (세브란스 의과대학; 세브란스 醫課大學). This was a result of a lasting bilateral cooperation between the two colleges which had begun in the 1920s. The institutions were new to Korea at the time of their inception — Yonhi College was one of the first modern colleges, founded originally as Chosun Christian College (조선기독교대학; 朝鮮基督教大學) in March, 1915, and Severance has its roots in the first modern medical center in Korea, Gwanghyewon (광혜원 廣惠院, House of Extended Grace), founded in April, 1885. As a tribute, the name 'Yonsei' was derived from the first syllables of the names of its two parent institutions, 'Yon; 연; 延' from Yonhi College and 'Sei; 세; 世' from Severance Union Medical College.

As of April 1, 2009, Yonsei University has a main campus in Seoul, a secondary campus in Wonju, South Korea, 26,530 undergraduate students, 11,437 graduate students, and 4,178 faculty members.

History

In 1885, King Gojong of the Chosun Dynasty requested Dr. H. N. Allen, an American Northern Presbyterian missionary who volunteered as a royal family doctor, to set up a hospital named Jejungwon in Gurigae. On March 29, 1886, sixteen students were selected and the school was opened. This marked not only the birth of Yonsei University, but also the starting point of modern medical education in Korea and among the first in Asia. Later, Dr. O. R. Avison, a Professor at the University of Toronto Medical School, became the head of Jejungwon, and through a donation from Mr. L. H. Severance, the hospital was reconstructed and the medical education institution was finalized. They respectively became Severance Hospital and Severance Medical School. The first seven graduates in 1908 received the first doctors’ licenses issued by the Korean government.

In 1917, the school developed into Severance Union Medical College, but, in 1942, under pressure from Japan the school name was changed to Asahi Medical College until Korea’s independence in August 1945

In 1947, the school obtained permission from the Ministry of Culture and Education to establish a 6-year long course program at Severance Medical College. During the Korean War, a humanitarian aid hospital was established to provide medical services for refugees and the injured.

Meanwhile, in September 1906, Miss Esther L. Shields established a nursing school within Severance Hospital as a professional institute to train outstanding nurses. The school produced the first nurses in Korea in 1910. In 1968, the school was elevated to College of Nursing.

Academics and Faculties

Colleges
o Seoul Campus
+ University College
+ College of Liberal Arts
+ College of Business and Economics
+ School of Business
+ College of Science
+ College of Engineering
+ College of Theology
+ College of Social Sciences
+ College of Law
+ College of Music
+ College of Human Ecology
+ College of Education Science
+ College of Christianity
+ College of Medicine
+ College of Dentistry
+ College of Nursing
+ Underwood International College

o Wonju Campus
+ College of Humanities and Arts
+ College of Sciences and Technologies
+ College of Government and Business
+ College of Health Sciences
+ Wonju College of Medicine
+ East Asia International College

* Graduate Schools
o Graduate School
o United Graduate School of Theology
o Graduate School of International Studies
o Graduate School of Information
o Graduate School of Communication and Arts
o Graduate School of Social Welfare
o Graduate School of Business Administration
o Graduate School of Education
o Graduate School of Public Administration
o Graduate School of Engineering
o Graduate School of Journalism and Mass Communication
o Graduate School of Law
o Graduate School of Human Environmental Sciences
o Graduate School of Economics
o Law School

* Medical Center
o Severance Hospital

Yonsei University ranked 151st in the 2009 THES-QS World University Ranking

University of Bergen

2010-01-06T20:08:00.004+08:00

The University of Bergen (Universitetet i Bergen) is located in Bergen, Norway. Although founded as late as 1946, academic activity had taken place at Bergen Museum as far back as 1825. The university today serves more than 14,500 students. It is one of seven universities in Norway.

Tuition

Home students (European citizens) do not pay fees to the university. Students are however required to be members of the student welfare organisation. As of Fall 2009, this fee (semesteravgift) is NOK 470 (approx. US$ 80) per semester, and provides access to several services, including cultural activities, childcare, refunds for many medical expenses and subsidized accommodation.

Ranking

The University in Bergen currently is ranked as the 144th best university in the world, out of 9000 universities. In 2006, the University of Bergen appeared unranked on the THES - QS World University Rankings among the 201-520th best universities in Europe. In 2007, the university was ranked as the 225th best in Europe, in front of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology and the University of Tromsø, which ranked as the 301st and 292nd best respectively, but behind the University of Oslo, ranked as the 188th best university.On the 2009 THE–QS World University Rankings list, the University of Bergen was ranked inside the top 200 for the first time.

Faculty of Humanities

* Centre for Medieval Studies
* Centre for the Study of the Sciences and the Humanities
* Centre for Women and Gender Research
* Department of Archeology, History, Cultural Studies and Religion (AHKR)
* Department of Foreign Languages (Arabic, English, French, Italian, Japanese, Russian, Spanish, German and single courses in Chinese (IF) [1]
* Department of Linguistics, Literary and Aestethical studies (LLE)
* Department of Philosophy and First Semester Studies (see Examen philosophicum and Examen facultatum) (FOF)
* The Grieg Academy – Department of Music

The faculty revised its structure and names in August 2007.
Faculty of Law

The Faculty of Law was established as a separate faculty in 1980, with legal studies and research having been conducted at the university since 1969. The faculty is one of three Norwegian institutions which offer legal studies, the other two being the law faculties at the University of Oslo and the University of Tromsø. The faculty offers a five-year programme leading to a Master's degree in law and a three-year PhD programme, and currently has approximately 1900 students.

Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences

* Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research
* Centre for Geobiology
* Centre for Pharmacy
* CIPR - Centre for Integrated Petroleum Research
* Department of Biology
* Department of Chemistry
* Department of Earth Science
* Department of Informatics
* Department of Mathematics
* Department of Molecular Biology
* Department of Physics and Technology
* Geophysical Institute
* Laboratory for Electron Microscopy
* School Science Center

Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry

* Centre for International Health
* Dental University Hospital
* Department of Clinical Dentistry
* Department of Clinical Medicine
* Department of Public Health and Primary Health Care
* Department of Surgical Sciences
* Institute of Medicine
* Laboratory Animal Facility
* The Department of Biomedicine
* The Gade Institute

Faculty of Psychology

The University of Bergen is the only institution in the Nordic countries where the study of psychology has been assigned to its own faculty. Established in 1980, it educates psychologists and is responsible for the University's pedagogic education.
Faculty of Social Sciences

* Department of Administration and Organization Theory
* Department of Comparative Politics
* Department of Economics
* Department of Geography
* Department of Information Science and Media Studies
* Department of Social Anthropology
* Department of Sociology
* Centre for Development Studies
* Centre for Gender Studies
* Centre for Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies

University of Bergen ranked 144th in the 2009 THES-QS World University Ranking

University of Athens

2009-07-02T19:33:00.005+08:00

The National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (Greek: Εθνικόν και Καποδιστριακόν Πανεπιστήμιον Αθηνών), usually referred to simply as the University of Athens, is the oldest university in Greece and has been in continuous operation since its establishment in 1837. Today, it is the second-largest institution of higher learning in Greece (the largest is the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki), with more than fifty thousand undergraduate students.

History

National and Capodistrian University of Athens was founded on 3 May 1837, and was housed in the residence of architect Stamatis Kleanthes, on the north east side of the Acropolis. It was the first University not only in the newly- established Greek State but in all the Balkans and the Eastern Mediterranean in general.

The "Othonian University", as it was called before taking its present name, "National and Capodistrian University of Athens", consisted of four Faculties, Theology, Law, Medicine and Arts (which included applied sciences and mathematics). It had 33 professors, 52 students and 75 non-matriculated "auditors".New classes began in a new building, which designed by the Danish architect Christian Hansen, in November 1841.

A major change in the structure of the University came about in 1904, when the Faculty of Arts was split into two separate Faculties: that of Arts and that of Sciences, the latter consisting of the departments of Physics and Mathematics and the School of Pharmacy. In 1919, a department of Chemistry was added, and in 1922 the School of Pharmacy was renamed a Department. A further change came about when the School of Dentistry was added to the Faculty of Medicine..

In this first and "heroic" period for Greek education, the University faculty made great efforts to fill the gap between their newly founded institution and older ones in other countries.

Between 1895 and 1911, an average of one thousand new students entered the Faculties each year, a figure which rose to two thousand at the end of World War I. This led to the decision to introduce entrance examinations for all the Faculties, beginning in the academic year 1927-28. Since 1954 the number of students admitted each year has been fixed by the Ministry of Education and Religion, on the proposal of the Faculties.

In the 1960's construction work began on the University Campus in the suburb of Ilissia. The Ilissia campus now houses the Schools of Philosophy, Theology and Sciences.

Academics and Schools

The University of Athens is divided into schools, faculties and departments as follows. The naming is nοt consistent in English for historical reasons, but in Greek the largest divisions are generally named “σχολές” (schools) and are divided in “τμήματα” (departments), furthermore subdivided in “τομείς” (divisions).

School of Theology
Faculty of Theology
Faculty of Social Theology

School of Philosophy
Faculty of Philology
Faculty of History and Archaeology
Faculty of Philosophy, Pedagogy and Psychology
Faculty of English Studies
Faculty of French Language and Literature
Faculty of German Studies
Faculty of Italian and Spanish Language and Literature
Faculty of Theatre Studies
Faculty of Music Studies
Faculty of Turkish and Modern Asian Studies
Faculty of Slavic Studies

Schools of Health Sciences
Faculty of Medicine
Faculty of Dentistry
Faculty of Pharmacy
Faculty of Nursing

School of Law, Economics and Political Sciences
Faculty of Law
Faculty of Economic Studies
Faculty of Political Science and Public Administration

School of Sciences
Faculty of Physics
Faculty of Biology
Faculty of Geology and Geoenvironment
Faculty of Chemistry
Faculty of Mathematics
Faculty of Informatics and Telecommunications

Independent faculties
Faculty of Physical Education and Sport Science
Faculty of Primary Education
Faculty of Early Childhood Education
Faculty of Communication and Mass Media Studies
Faculty of Philosophy & History of Science

University of Athens ranked 200th in the 2008 THES-QS World University Ranking

University of Athens ranked 177th in the 2009 THES-QS World University Ranking

University of Buenos Aires

2009-07-02T19:23:00.005+08:00

The University of Buenos Aires (Spanish: Universidad de Buenos Aires, UBA) is the largest university in Argentina and the largest university by enrollment in Latin America,surpassing both the National Autonomous University of Mexico and the Universidade Estácio de Sá of Brazil. Founded on August 12, 1821 in the city of Buenos Aires, it consists of 13 faculties, 6 hospitals, 10 museums and is linked to 3 high schools: Colegio Nacional de Buenos Aires, Escuela Superior de Comercio Carlos Pellegrini and Instituto Libre de Segunda Enseñanza.

To enter any of the available programmes of study in the university, students who have successfully completed high school must pass a first year called CBC, which stands for Ciclo Básico Común (Common Basic Cycle). Only upon completion of this first year may the student enter the chosen faculty; until then, they must attend courses in different buildings, and have up to 3 years to finish the 6 subjects (which vary depending on the programme of study chosen) assigned in two groups of 3. Each subject is of one semester duration (March-July or August-November). If someone passes all 6 subjects in their respective semesters, the CBC will take only one year. Potential students of economics, instead, take a 2-year common cycle, the "CBG" (General Basic Cycle), comprising 12 subjects.

The UBA has no central campus. A centralized Ciudad Universitaria (literally, "university city") was started in the 1960s, but contains only two schools, with the others at different locations in Buenos Aires.

Access to the university is free of charge for everyone, including foreigners.

History

The University of Buenos Aires (UBA) was inaugurated 12 August, 1821 by the initiative of Bernardino Rivadavia - at the time Ministry of Government of Buenos Aires . Since then, the institution has followed, first as a provincial and then -since 1881- as a national University, the course that the country and city's history have taken. The institution has also gone along paths that contributed to its growth as a cultural and scientific academic centre and a place for the training of professionals, circulation and production of knowledge.

In 1885, the "Avellaneda Law" was passed aiming at the organization of the two existing National Universities at that moment: Buenos Aires University and Córdoba University . This law provided a legal framework that contemplated the university autonomy and established the method to be applied to the naming and appointment of authorities. It also made the university responsible for issuing the degrees that enable the practise of different professions, assigning the institution, in this way, an institutional profile tightly linked to a Professional University - a characteristic which would be pointed out as a limitation to the scientific development of the university by some reformers.

When the National unification was completed, Argentina entered a process of integration to the worldwide market. This new situation involved responding to demands such as the reception of immigrant inhabitants and, together with it, the growth of cities; the development of an urbane infrastructure; the State's responsibility in connection to education and public health policies; and the creation of a political and administrative frame. The State's requirement of knowledge and professionals placed the University in a central position.

Throughout history, the University has shown the capacity of adapting in order to cater for the State's, the Markets', the production areas' and the Society's needs.
Different changes in Europe led to a transformation of the conceptions about scientific research in Argentina - as well as in the rest of the world- which were reflected in the University. There was a clash - specially seen in the Medicine and Law Schools -between the conceptions of a University focused on the professional development and a University concentrated on scientific research. By the end of XIX several museums and research centres were created: the Pathology Institute (1887), the Ethnographic Museum of the Faculty of Philosophy and Literature (1904), among others.

The UBA also underwent a process of democratization and experienced a progression in the modernization of knowledge early in its history. The Reform that took place between 1905 and 1906 established the values that represent the Argentine university tradition nowadays: those of autonomy and democracy; teaching, scientific research and university extension. This democratization implied, among other things, the incorporation of teachers in the election of authorities. The most significant achievement of the Reform was the constitution of a threefold government with the representation of teachers' senate, students and graduates.

The Reform also brought in its train a renewal of plans of studies concerning the ways of transmission and creation of spaces for research - which was tightly linked to the interest of groups of students and teachers intent on creating a scientific university.

It is worth highlighting the contributions that foreign thinkers and scientists - such as Ortega, Augusto Pi Suñer, Einstein, Le Corbousier and Gasset- made to this process of modernization.

In the 1930's both the democratization and autonomy of the University were jeopardized by the military coups and repressive actions that took place in the country.

Among the social and political turmoil, the UBA experienced, nonetheless, a process of scientific update which included the institutionalization of research teams, the upgrade of libraries and the creation of new courses of studies (sociology, psychology, economy, etc.). The spread of scientific information acquired a relevant place with the creation of the University Publishing House (EUDEBA). The creation of institutions which do not belong to the University such as the National Institute of Agricultural Technology (INTA), the Institute of Industrial Technology (INTI) and the National Council of Scientific and Technical Investigation (CONICET) reinforced the concept of modernization propelled by a developmental ideology.

The University of Buenos Aires went through an institutional reconstruction during the first years of democracy. It regained autonomy and the threefold governmental structure.

In the 20 years of democracy in the university, basic functions were restored: teaching, research and University extension. In this period, plans have been updated and new courses of studies created.

One of the first innovations was the creation of the CBC which provided an answer to the gap in the articulation between high schools and university studies.
The long tradition of university extension was taken up again and the Secretary of Extension was created. One of its most important developments was the foundation of the Cultural Centre "Ricardo Rojas".

Academics and Schools

The faculties that compose the university are:
Ciclo Básico Común
Facultad de Psicología (psychology)
Facultad de Ingeniería (engineering)
Facultad de Odontología (dentistry)
Facultad de Farmacia y Bioquímica (pharmacy and biochemistry)
Facultad de Filosofía y Letras (philosophy and literature)
Facultad de Derecho (law)
Facultad de Medicina (medicine)
Facultad de Ciencias Sociales (social sciences)
Facultad de Veterinaria (veterinary medicine)
Facultad de Agronomía (agronomy)
Facultad de Ciencias Económicas (economics)
Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales (exact science and natural science)
Facultad de Arquitectura, Diseño y Urbanismo (architecture, design and urbanism)

Of these, only the last two have their buildings located in Ciudad Universitaria, a campus-like location in Núñez, in northern Buenos Aires. The others are scattered around the city in buildings of various sizes, with some having more than one building. There are projects to move more faculties to Ciudad Universitaria, the first one in order of importance it's the Faculty of Psychology, whose building is already designed to be emplaced in this Campus.

University of Buenos Aires ranked 197th in the 2008 THES-QS World University Ranking

Dalhousie University

2009-07-02T13:00:00.003+08:00

Dalhousie University is a university located in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. As the largest post-secondary educational institution in the Maritime Provinces it offers a wide array of programs, including a medical program and the Dalhousie Law School. The chancellor is Mr. Fred Fountain; Dr. Tom Traves serves as president and vice-chancellor.

Dalhousie is consistently named among Canada's top research universities. It is a member of the Group of Thirteen, more commonly referred to as the G13, a group of the leading research universities in Canada.

In 2003 and 2004, The Scientist magazine placed Dalhousie among the top five places in the world, outside the United States, for postdoctoral work and conducting scientific research. In 2007 Dalhousie topped the list of The Scientist’s “Best Places to Work in Academia”. The annual list divides research and academic institutions into American and international lists; Dalhousie University is ranked first in the international category. According to a survey conducted by The Scientist magazine, Dal was named the best non-commercial scientific institute in which to work in Canada.

Dalhousie University was ranked as the eighth-best university (Medical Doctoral Rankings) in Canada by Maclean's Magazine in 2008. In addition, Maclean's ranked Dalhousie's law school sixth overall for two consecutive years.In the 2008 edition of the annual Times Higher Education Supplement-Quacquarelli Symonds World University Rankings, Dalhousie ranked 11th in Canada and 197th internationally.

History

Dalhousie College was founded in 1818 as a non-denominational university by the 9th Earl of Dalhousie, at the time the Governor of Nova Scotia. Dalhousie University awarded its first BA in 1866.

Using money acquired from the duties collected during the occupation of parts of Maine in the War of 1812, Ramsay established Dalhousie as a college open to all people regardless of class or creed. At the laying of the cornerstone on May 22, 1820, Lord Dalhousie said that this University was "founded on the principles of religious tolerance." Dalhousie remained one of only three universities founded on secular constitutional premises until as late as the 1950s. Although it was technically founded in 1818, Dalhousie did not have its first students until November 1st, 1838. However, following the death of the University's first principal, Thomas McCulloch, in 1843 the school was once again allowed to fall into inactivity. Dalhousie did not permanently open its door again until November 10, 1863.

In 1876 the experiment was commenced in Halifax, Nova Scotia of a University to hold examinations in arts, law, and medicine, and to confer degrees.

Dalhousie was distinctive as an urban institution, situated in downtown Halifax on the site of the present City Hall. This status was seen not only, in the early days at least, in the use of much of the college's lowest floor as vault space for Oland Brewery, but also in the consistent drawing of about one-third of the student body from the city and in the college's ability to draw upon local professional populations in the establishment of professional faculties such as medicine (1868) and law (1883). Finances remained difficult into the 1880s, but by the end of that decade the accumulated donations of the philanthropist George Munro, brother-in-law of Board of Governors member John Forrest, had provided the stimulus that led to growth in student numbers and the emergence of Dalhousie as a centre of scholarship acknowledged throughout the dominion.

Dalhousie's colours of black and gold come from the jerseys worn by the Dalhousie University Rugby Football Club (who still wear those colours, as well as the school crest on their jerseys).

The Halifax Conservatory became affiliated with Dalhousie in 1889.

In 1920 the University of King's College in Windsor, Nova Scotia, English Canada's oldest degree granting institution, burned down. Through a grant from the Carnegie Foundation, King's College was able to relocate to Halifax and entered into a partnership with Dalhousie University. While often seen as a separate but integrated institution, King's shares Dalhousie's Arts and Sciences Faculty, but offers several interdisciplinary humanities degree programmes, such as Contemporary Studies, History of Science and Technology and Early Modern Studies.

In 1936, the Institute of Public Affairs was established at Dalhousie University.

Dalhousie expanded its presence in south-end Halifax during the 1960s and 1970s when it built the Dalplex athletic facility, the Killam Library, the Life Sciences Centre, the Dalhousie Student Union building and a district heating plant, all on what is referred to as the Studley Campus (the main campus). Also at this time, Dalhousie built the Tupper Building for its Faculty of Medicine and expanded existing buildings to house the Faculty of Dentistry and College of Pharmacy, all on the adjacent Carleton Campus, located immediately to the east of the Studley Campus, and co-located with two of Halifax's teaching hospitals (the Victoria General Site of the Queen Elizabeth II Health Sciences Centre and the IWK Health Centre for Women, Children, and Youth).

Nova Scotia Technical College in Halifax launched its program in architecture in 1961. Nova Scotia Technical College was later the Technical University of Nova Scotia (TUNS). [11] Following a period of government-mandated consolidation of post-secondary institutions during the 1990s, the Technical University of Nova Scotia was merged with Dalhousie University in 1997. It was initially known as Dalhousie University Polytechnic, or DalTech, but in 2000 the DalTech nickname was dropped and the engineering, architecture and computer science faculties of TUNS were fully integrated into Dalhousie University. The Faculty of Engineering and the Faculty of Architecture and Planning are located on the Sexton Campus, east of the Carleton Campus and closer to downtown Halifax. The Faculty of Computer Science moved to its own building, the Goldberg Computer Science Building on Studley Campus, in 1999.

Dalhousie is part of the Canadian Ivy League. Among North American universities, only Harvard, Yale, Princeton, McGill and the University of Toronto boast more Rhodes Scholars than Dalhousie.

Academics and Schools

Dalhousie comprises eleven faculties:
Architecture and Planning The following degrees are offered: Bachelor of Commmunity Design, Bachelor of Community Design Honours, Master of Planning, Master of Planning Studies, Bachelor of Environmental Design Studies, Master of Architecture

Arts and Social Sciences
Computer Science
Dentistry
Engineering Students can choose to specialize in the following disciplines: Biological Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Civil Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Industrial Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Metallurgical Engineering and Mining Engineering
Graduate Studies
Health Professions
Law
Management
Medicine
Science

Dalhousie University ranked 197th in the 2008 THES-QS World University Ranking

University of Bern

2009-07-02T10:17:00.004+08:00

The University of Bern (German: Universität Bern, French: Université de Berne) is a university in the Swiss capital of Berne. It was founded in 1834. The university is regulated and financed by the Canton of Berne.

The University of Bern offers top quality across the board: it enjoys special recognition in leading-edge disciplines, is reputed for the excellent quality of its teaching, offers a delightful setting, and a campus environment intimately linked to the social, economic and political life of the city.

The university’s comprehensive offering includes 8 faculties and some 160 institutes that date back to the XVIth century. With 13,000 students, it is of mid-range size among Swiss universities. Unlike the bigger institutions, it retains a human dimension and a warm and friendly atmosphere.

History

The History of the University of Bern
1528-1805: From the «Hohe Schule» to the Academy
The actual foundations of the University of Bern were laid as early as the 16th century when it
became necessary to assure the training of protestant ministers after the Reformation. The original number of three professors was doubled by the end of the 17th century. During the 18th century education in the humanities and divinity stayed in the foreground. With the onset of the Age of Enlightenment Chairs of Law and of Mathematics were added.

In 1805 the Bern government reorganised the entire tertiary education system by expanding the School of Theology into an Academy with four faculties. Thus not only ministers but also lawyers and physicians (including veterinarians) could complete their entire education in Bern. The Philosophical Faculty (Humanities and Natural Sciences) was to lay the foundation for the three «higher» faculties.

1834: Foundation of the University
In 1831, the patrician regime of Bern had to give way to the Liberals, and the new government
fulfilled the need for a loyal civil service and educated elite by transforming the Academy into a
University following the German model. The University Law passed in 1834 introduced academic freedom for study and instruction. The number of professors increased from 29 to 45. In the beginning entry requirements were very low in order to enable the rural population to gain access to higher education. The University of Bern was soon drawn into the great political altercations of the time. Only in the second half of the century did circumstances allow for a more serene development.

In 1885, the number of students exceeded for the first time the number of 500, and by the end of the century had risen to over 1000 mainly due to the influx of foreign students. In 1868/1870,
female students from Russia helped breach the University to women. By the end of the 19th
century, the Institute of Natural Sciences left the old Monastery to move into its own building, and in 1903, the new Main Building of the University on the «Grosse Schanze» could be inaugurated.

After 1900: New Faculties, Expansion of Institutes and Departments
After the turn of the century, the number of faculties and departments increased. The Veterinary School had separated from the University in 1868 and reunited with it in 1900 as a separate faculty.

As a reaction to the papal dogma of infallibility a national catholic church, independent from Rome, was founded. Unique in Switzerland, the University of Bern established a Faculty of Independent Catholic Theology («Christkatholische Theologische Fakultät») to support this development. In the course of the 19th century the two directions within the Faculty of Philosophy moved more and more apart, and in 1921 the formal separation between the Faculties of Philosophical History on the one hand and of Natural Sciences on the other took place. With the growing prominence of Economic Sciences, a separate department was established in 1912 within the Faculty of Law, which in 1954 was renamed Faculty of Law and Economics.

City of Bern

After 1945: Expansion and Reorganisation
Up to the end of the Second World War, the University went through a period of quiet expansion. Its position in the economic and cultural life was widely appreciated. In the fifties and sixties of the last century demands were raised for the «development of the formative potential» and «enlargement of the academic and technical sector of education». While there were still only 250 professors (very few among them women) and 2122 students in 1956, a phase of rapid growth now began. The University also increased in space. The Humanities moved into locations outside the Main Building in order to meet their need for more room. But the rapid expansion soon led to new problems and requirements. Federal educational policies became more and more influential, and in order to better control the ever increasing complexity of the University, a revision of the University Law (modified previously in 1954) seemed vital. But a restructuring plan proposed by governmentcommissioned experts in 1969 was never realized, nor was a corresponding draft law that had been submitted by the University Administration.

An attempt to ratify a partial revision via referendum failed in 1982 and in 1989, when Bern counted 9000 students and 1200 professors (and still hardly any women among them), a minimally revised law was passed. Finally, with the new law of September 1st, 1997 the University became its own legal entity with explicit remits set by the cantonal government.

Academics and Schools

At the moment, the University has an enrollment of roughly 13,000 students, studying in eight different faculties:

Christian Theology: Reformed denomination and Old Catholic denomination
Law
Medicine
Veterinary Medicine
Economics and Social Studies
Philosophic-historical Studies
Philosophic-scientific Studies
Philosophic-humanistic Studies

The Philosophical-Historical Faculty is similar to the Arts & Sciences departments at American universities, with majors (Hauptfächer) in a variety of languages, history, linguistics, economics, philosophy, psychology, etc. The Philosophical-Scientific Faculty is restricted to the "hard" sciences, like chemistry or physics. The philosophic-Humanistic Faculty was founded 2005 and allows studies in Education, Sports and psychological studies. The department of Old Catholic Theology at the Faculty of Theology is the only place in the world to study theology in this kind of denomination.

The Faculty of Theology has the lowest number of students, while the Philosophical-Historical Faculty has the most students.

University of Bern ranked 192nd in the 2008 THES-QS World University Ranking

University of Bern ranked 193rd in the 2009 THES-QS World University Ranking

Technische Universität Berlin

2009-07-02T08:18:00.005+08:00

The Technical University of Berlin (Berlin Institute of Technology, TUB, TU Berlin, German: Technische Universität Berlin) is located in Berlin, Germany. It was founded in 1879 and, with nearly 30,000 students, is one of the largest technical universities in Germany. It also has the highest proportion of foreign students out of universities in Germany, with 20.9% in the summer semester of 2007, roughly 5,598 students. The university alumni and professor list include eight Nobel Prize winners.

History

he institution was unified in 1879 under the name Royal Technical College of Charlottenburg (later Berlin) by merging the Building Academy (Bauakademie), established in 1799, and the Vocational Academy, established in 1829. Since 1916 it has been integrated with the former Mining Academy, which was the oldest institution, founded in 1770. The college was closed after World War II on April 20, 1945 and the university re-opened on April 9, 1946 under its current name.

"The university’s reopening in 1946 was purposely conceived as a new beginning, so as to make a clear break with the National Socialist past. This fresh start was also to be expressed in its new name: as Germany’s first technical university it was named simply “Technische Universität”. Its educational mission was reallocated as well with an emphasis on “universal education”. By including the Humanities in its compendium of subjects, the TU Berlin became the first technical university in Germany to present a humanistic element in its scholastic profile. The aim was to breach the gap between technological research and social responsibility. The challenge of gaining insight into interaction between society and technology remains an important issue even today.

Right from its inception, the TU Berlin was open to embracing reforms and innovations. Fundamental changes within the German university system eventually led to the student movements of the late 1960s. Given its central location, the TU Berlin was often the focal point of student activities in Berlin during this time frame. The 1960s and 1970s were characterized by a significant expansion of German universities, with the number of students attending the TU Berlin increasing accordingly. Forthermore, parts of the former Pädagogische Hochschule (college of education) Berlin were merged with the TU Berlin on April 1, 1980.

Since the 1980s, however, universities have also felt the direct impact of public funding constraints. The fall of the Berlin Wall prompted a sudden explosion of science and research capacities in Berlin, with costs rising as a result. Initiation of the so-called University Contract Agreement (Hochschulverträge) posed a real challenge to the Federal State of Berlin. Since the late 1990s, this agreement provides financial planning security to universities, but in return demands that they adopt a number of reforms. The TU Berlin has consistently met these challenges by adopting lean, modern university administration practices, by modifying the scholastic program to fit our Bachelors/Masters program and by ensuring excellence in research.
"

Academics

TU Berlin has consisted of the following schools:
Humanities
Mathematics and Natural Sciences
Process Sciences and Engineering
Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Mechanical Engineering and Transport Systems
Planning - Building - Environment (merge of former schools of "Civil Engineering and Applied Geosciences" and "Architecture - Environment - Society")
Merge with school 6 (see above)
Economics and Management

TU Berlin ranked 188th in the 2008 THES-QS World University Ranking

Pohang University of Science and Technology

2009-07-01T21:23:00.003+08:00

Pohang University of Science and Technology or POSTECH is a private university, based in Pohang, South Korea, which is dedicated to research and education in science and technology. In 1998, it was ranked by Asiaweek as the best science and technology university in Asia. Furthermore, from 2002 - 2006, one of Korea's most circulated daily newspapers, Joongangilbo ranked POSTECH as the leading university in Korea.

History

The official history of POSTECH begins on November 9, 1986. However, the school's opening is actually celebrated on December 3 (concatenating 12 from the month and 3 from the day gives 123). The full name of POSTECH at the beginning was Pohang Institute of Science and Technology.

The first students matriculated on March 2, 1987, all of whom lived in 4 dormitories in their first year.

Academics and Schools

The university has ten undergraduate departments and 15 graduate departments which includes five professional schools.

Academic departments
Mathematics
Physics
Chemistry
Life Science
Materials Science and Engineering
Mechanical Engineering
Industrial and Management Engineering
Electronic and Electrical Engineering
Computer Science & Engineering
Chemical Engineering
Division of Humanities and Social Sciences

Professional Graduate Schools
School of Interdisciplinary Bioscience and Bioengineering (I-BIO)
School of Environmental Science and Engineering (SEE)
Graduate School for Information Technology (GIST)
Graduate Institute of Ferrous Technology (GIFT)
Technology Innovation & Management Graduate Program (TIM)

Pohang University of Science and Technology ranked 188th in the 2008 THES-QS World University Ranking

Pohang University of Science and Technology ranked 134th in the 2009 THES-QS World University Ranking

Brandeis University

2009-06-30T09:39:00.004+08:00

Brandeis University is a private research university with a liberal arts focus,located in Waltham, Massachusetts, United States. It is located in the southwestern corner of Waltham, nine miles (14 km) west of Boston. The University has an enrollment of approximately 3,200 undergraduate and 2,100 graduate students. In 2009, it was ranked by the U.S. News and World Report as the number 31 national university in the United States.Forbes listed Brandeis University as number 30 among all national universities and liberal arts colleges combined and among the top 15 national research universities in 2009.

Brandeis was founded in 1948 as a nonsectarian coeducational institution on the site of the former Middlesex University. The university is named for the first Jewish Justice of the United States Supreme Court, Louis Dembitz Brandeis (1856–1941).

The Heller School for Social Policy and Management, founded in 1959, is noteworthy for its graduate programs in social policy, social work, and international development

Brandeis sponsors the Wien International Scholarship for international undergraduate students.

History

Founded in 1948, Brandeis University is named for the late Louis Dembitz Brandeis, the distinguished associate justice of the United States Supreme Court, and reflects the ideals of academic excellence and social justice he personified. Coeducational classes began on the site of the former Middlesex University in Waltham, Massachusetts, with 107 students and 13 faculty members.

Guided for 20 years by its founding president, Abram L. Sachar, Brandeis grew quickly, establishing itself as an important national and international center for teaching and research. In 1962, only 14 years after the university's founding, Phi Beta Kappa accreditation was conferred. Under each succeeding president, the university continued to grow in breadth and stature, while maintaining the very human scale of its educational environment and its solid liberal arts focus.

In 1985, Brandeis was elected to membership in the Association of American Universities, which represents the 62 leading research universities in the United States and Canada.

Academics and Schools

The schools of the University include:
The College of Arts and Sciences
The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
The Heller School for Social Policy and Management
Rabb School of Summer and Continuing Studies
Brandeis International Business School

The College of Arts and Sciences comprises 24 departments and 22 interdepartmental programs, which offer 41 majors and 46 minors.

The Brandeis University Press, a member of the University Press of New England, publishes books in a variety of scholarly and general interest fields.

The Goldfarb Library at Brandeis has more than 1.2 million books and 60,000 e-journals.

Brandeis University ranked 185th in the 2008 THES-QS World University Ranking

Lomonosov Moscow State University

2009-06-28T17:21:00.006+08:00

M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University (Russian: Моско́вский госуда́рственный университе́т и́мени М.В.Ломоно́сова, Moskóvskiy gosudárstvennyy universitét ímeni M. V. Lomonósova), for a time the Lomonosov University or MSU (Russian: университе́т Ломоно́сова, Universitét Lomonósova; Russian: МГУ, MGU), is the largest university in Russia. Founded in 1755, it also claims to be the oldest university in Russia and the tallest educational building in the world. As of 2004, the university has some 4,000 staff teaching 31,000 students and 7,000 postgraduates. Its current rector is Viktor Sadovnichiy. In 1940, the university was renamed in honor of its founder, Mikhail Lomonosov.

History

The establishment of the university was instigated by Ivan Shuvalov and Mikhail Lomonosov, and the decree ordering its creation was issued by Russian Empress Elizabeth on January 25 (January 12 old style), 1755. The first lectures were held on April 26. January 25 is still celebrated as Students' Day in Russia.

It is disputed whether Moscow State University or St. Petersburg State University is actually the oldest higher education institution in Russia. While the former was established in 1755, the latter, which has been in continuous operation under the moniker "university" since 1819, claims to be the successor of the university established on January 24 1724 by a decree of Peter the Great together with the Academic Gymnasium and Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences.

Originally located in the Principal Medicine Store on Red Square, the university was transferred by Catherine the Great to the present Neoclassical building on the other side of Mokhovaya Street. The main building was constructed between 1782 and 1793 in the Neo-Palladian style, designed by Matvei Kazakov, and rebuilt after the Fire of Moscow (1812) by Domenico Giliardi.

In the 18th century, the university had three faculties: philosophy, medicine, and law. A college for future students was affiliated with the university before being abolished in 1812. In 1779, Mikhail Kheraskov founded a boarding school for noblemen (Благородный пансион), which was transformed into a gymnasium for the Russian nobility in 1830. The university press, run by Nikolay Novikov in the 1780s, published the most popular newspaper in Imperial Russia — Moskovskie Vedomosti.

In 1804, medical education was split into Clinical (therapy), Surgical, and Obstetrics faculties. In 1884-1897, the Department of Medicine, supported by private donations, City Hall, and the national government, built an extensive, 1.6 kilometer long, state-of-the-art medical campus in Devichye Pole, between the Garden Ring and Novodevichy Convent. It was designed by Konstantin Bykovsky, with University doctors like Nikolay Sklifosovskiy and Fyodor Erismann acting as consultants. The campus, and medical education in general, were separated from the University in 1918. Devichye Pole is now operated by the independent Moscow Medical Academy and various other state and private institutions.

In 1905, a social-democratic organization was created at the university calling for the tsar to be overthrown and for Russia to be turned into a republic. The Tsarist government repeatedly began closing the university. In 1911, in a protest over the introduction of troops onto the campus and mistreatment of certain professors, 130 scientists and professors resigned en masse, including prominent figures such as Nikolay Dimitrievich Zelinskiy, Pyotr Nikolaevich Lebedev, and Sergei Alekseevich Chaplygin. Thousands of students were also expelled.

After the October Revolution in 1917, the school began allowing the admission of children of the proletariat and peasants, not just those of the well-to-do. In 1919, tuition fees were abolished, and a preparatory facility was created for children of the working class so that they would be able to pass the admission examinations. The political repressions of the 1930s and 1950s severely limited the development of scientific ideas, as Soviet scientists had virtually no contacts with their colleagues abroad. Certain branches of science (e.g. genetics) were condemned for being based on anti-Communist ideologies, and a number of scientists and scholars were sentenced to life imprisonment.

World War II (known in Russia as the Great Patriotic War) was one of the most difficult periods in the history of Russia. University students and staff began to enlist in the army on the third day of fighting. One of the divisions formed out of University volunteers fought defending Moscow.

Many Moscow State University professors, students, and staff were evacuated during the war first to Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, then to Sverdlovsk, returning to Moscow in 1943, after the German troops were defeated near the capital. During the war, over 3,000 specialists were trained at the University. University scientists continued their research, and their contributions to applied science allowed improvements in aircraft development, the accuracy of artillery fire, etc. Also, new explosives were invented, a study of uranium was carried out, a blood coagulant was introduced into medical practice, University geologists discovered tungsten and new oil deposits in Central Asia, and University geographers supplied the Red Army with maps and charts. University lawyers made their contribution during the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials.

During the post-war period, the leading role of Moscow State University in the restoration and further development of the country was fully recognized. There was a fivefold increase in state funding, and a new University campus was built on Vorobievy Gory (Sparrow Hills), where all the lecture halls and laboratories had the most modern equipment available at the time.

After 1991, nine new faculties were established. In 1992, the university was granted a unique status: it is funded directly from the state budget (bypassing the ministry of education), which provides a significant level of independence.

On September 6, 1997, the entire front of the university was used as the backdrop for a concert by French electronic musician Jean Michel Jarre, who had been specially invited to perform there by the mayor of the city. The entire front of the building was used as a giant projection screen, while fireworks, lasers, and searchlights were all launched from various points around the building. The stage was directly in front of the building, and the concert, titled "The Road To The 21st Century" in Russia, but renamed "Oxygen In Moscow" for worldwide video/DVD release, attracted a world record crowd of 3.5 million people.

On March 19, 2008, Russia's most powerful supercomputer to date, the SKIF MSU (Russian: СКИФ МГУ; skif is Russian for "scythian") was launched at the university. Its peak performance is 60 TFLOPS and LINPACK is 47.170 TFLOPS, making it the fastest supercomputer in the CIS.

Academics and Faculties

As of 2008, the university has 30 faculties and 15 research centers:
Faculty of Global Studies
Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics
Faculty of Computational Mathematics and Cybernetics
Faculty of Physics
Faculty of Chemistry
Faculty of Biology
Faculty of Bioengineering and Bioinformatics
Faculty of Soil Science
Faculty of Geology
Faculty of Geography
Faculty of Materials Science
Faculty of Medicine
Faculty of History
Faculty of Philology
Faculty of Philosophy
Faculty of Economics
Higher School of Business Administration
Faculty of Law
Faculty of Journalism
Faculty of Psychology
The Institute of Asian and African countries
Faculty of Sociology
Faculty of Foreign Languages and Area Studies
Faculty of Public Administration
Faculty of Fine and Performing Arts
Faculty of World Politics
Faculty of Education
Faculty of Further Education
Moscow School of Economics
Faculty of Military Training

Lomonosov Moscow State University Ranked 183rd in the 2008 THES-QS World University Ranking

Lomonosov Moscow State University Ranked 155th in the 2009 THES-QS World University Ranking

Indian Institute of Technology Bombay

2009-06-25T16:56:00.003+08:00

The Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (Marathi/Hindi: भारतीय प्रौद्योगिकी संस्थान, मुंबई), popularly known as IIT Bombay or IITB, is an autonomous university located in Powai, in north central Mumbai (formerly Bombay). It is the second-oldest campus of the Indian Institutes of Technology system and the largest National Institute in the state of Maharashtra. IIT Bombay has emerged as the most favoured destination for students amongst the 15 IITs with 54, 50, 46 and 52 students in the top 100 at the IIT-JEE opting for IIT Bombay in the years 2008, 2007, 2006 and 2005 respectively. Its record placement figures and location within the country's financial & entertainment capital are factors leading to this.

History

IIT Bombay was the second IIT to be established in 1958 with assistance from UNESCO and with funds contributed by the Soviet Union. UNESCO agreed to provide equipment and technical experts mainly from the Soviet Union, while the Government of India accepted the responsibility for all other expenses including the cost of the building project and recurring expenses.

The site chosen for the institute was Powai, eighteen miles (29 km) from the city of Bombay (Mumbai), with an area of 550 acres (2.2 km2) which was given by the then Bombay State Government. While construction was being completed, the first academic session of the Institute opened on July 25, 1958, in its temporary home at the Synthetic and Art Silk Mills Research Association (SASMIRA) building in Worli (Bombay) with 100 students. These students were selected from over 3,400 applicants for admission to the first year undergraduate programmes in Chemical, Civil, Electrical, Mechanical and Metallurgical Engineering. One of the main objectives of establishing the Institute was to develop facilities for studies in a variety of specialised engineering and technological sciences. The need for establishing adequate facilities for postgraduate studies and research was kept uppermost in mind in the founding years.

While the Institute was functioning provisionally at Worli, an effort was made to expedite the progress of the building project at its permanent location. When Jawaharlal Nehru laid the foundation stone of the Institute at Powai on March 10, 1959, water and electric supply lines were just being laid and one approach road to the site was under construction.

Today, nearly fifty years later, IIT Bombay continues to contribute significantly to the advancement of science and technology in India in a number of ways. It has produced world class engineers and scientists, and alumni of IIT Bombay are achieving success in various capacities as entrepreneurs, managers, technocrats, consultants and advisers, and as faculty members and researchers, in India and abroad.It is frequently rated as one of the best technical institutes in the world.

Academics

IIT Bombay has 14 departments, 10 multi-disciplinary centres, and 3 schools of excellence. The academic departments in IIT Bombay include the following:
Aerospace Engineering
Chemical Engineering
Chemistry
Civil Engineering
Computer Science & Engineering
Earth Sciences
Electrical Engineering
Energy Science and Engineering
Humanities & Social Science
Industrial Design Centre
Mathematics
Mechanical Engineering
Metallurgical Engineering & Materials Science
Physics

The following multi-disciplinary centres are located in IIT Bombay:
Advance Center for Research in Electronics (ACRE)
Computer Aided Design Center (CAD)
Centre for Research in NanoTechnology and Sciences (CRNTS)
Centre for Aerospace Systems Design and Engineering (CASDE)
Centre for Research in Entrepreneurship (CARE)
Centre for Distant Engineering Education Programme (cDEEP)
Centre for Environmental Science and Engineering (CESE)
Centre for Studies in Resources Engineering (CSRE)]
Centre for Technology Alternatives for Rural Areas (CTARA)
Centre for Formal Design and Verification of Software (CFDVS)
Regional Sophisticated Instrumentation Centre (RSIC)

The three schools of excellence in IIT Bombay are:
School of Biosciences and Bioengineering (Bioschool)]
Kanwal Rekhi School of Information Technology (KReSIT)
Shailesh J Mehta School of Management (SJMSOM)

In addition to above, IIT Bombay also offers inter-disciplinary programs in six fields that include:
Biomedical Engineering
Corrosion Science & Engineering
Industrial Engineering and Operations Research (IEOR)
Reliability Engineering
Systems and Control Engineering (SysCon)

Indian Institute of Technology Bombay ranked 174 in the 2008 THES-QS World University Ranking

Indian Institute of Technology Bombay ranked 163 in the 2009 THES-QS World University Ranking

Universität FRANKFURT am Main

2009-06-21T09:24:00.003+08:00

The Johann Wolfgang Goethe University Frankfurt am Main (also known as Frankfurt University; since June 1, 2008 presented as Goethe University Frankfurt am Main) was founded in 1914 as a Citizens' University, which means that while it was a State university of Prussia, it had been founded and financed by the wealthy and active liberal citizenry of Frankfurt am Main, a unique feature in German university history. It was named in 1932 after one of the most famous natives of Frankfurt, poet and writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Today, the university has 31,228 students.

History

university was founded in 1914 through private funding. Thus, the university owes its establishment to the link – which is characteristic for the city of Frankfurt – between dynamic research, the legacy of the Enlightenment, and the conscious commitment of the citizens of Frankfurt to the fundamentals of international trade and industry.

As one of the major institutions of higher education in Germany, the university is committed to providing a wide spectrum of disciplines in research and teaching, to generating outstanding achievements, and to breaking new ground through the targeted utilization of the advantages and synergies of interdisciplinary work in research and teaching. In competition with the best national and international universities, Frankfurt University aims to fulfill its training and educational mandates through performance and open-mindedness. The university supports the practical application of knowledge based upon solid fundamental research.

The University of Frankfurt has at times been considered liberal, or left-leaning, and has had a reputation for Jewish and Marxist scholarship (or even Jewish-Marxist). Thus, during Nazi times, "almost one third of its academics and many of its students were dismissed for racial and/or political reasons—more than at any other German university." (University homepage) It also played a major part of the German student riots of 1968.

The University of Frankfurt is historically best known for the Institute for Social Research (founded 1924), institutional home of the Frankfurt School, one of the most important 20th century schools of philosophy and social thought at all. Some of the most famous University of Frankfurt scholars are associated with this school, including Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, and Jürgen Habermas, as well as Herbert Marcuse, Erich Fromm, and Walter Benjamin. Others include the sociologist Karl Mannheim, the philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer, the philosophers of religion Franz Rosenzweig, Martin Buber, and Paul Tillich, the psychologist Max Wertheimer, and the sociologist Norbert Elias.

In recent years the University turned its attention especially to law, history and economics, creating new institutes like the Institute for Law and Finance (ILF) and the Center of Financial Studies (CFS). One of the university's ambitions is to become Germany's leading university for finance and economics, given the school's proximity to one of Europe's financial centers. Therefore Frankfurt University’s Goethe Business School developed a new M.B.A. program in cooperation with Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, and has established an international award for research in financial economics, the Deutsche Bank Prize in Financial Economics.

Academic Faculties

01 Law
02 Economics and Business Administration
03 Social Sciences
04 Educational Sciences
05 Psychology and Sports Sciences
06 Protestant Theology
07 Roman Catholic Theology
08 Philosophy and History
09 Linguistics, Cultural and Civilization Studies, Art Studies
10 Modern Languages
11Geosciences and Geography
12 Computer Science and Mathematics
13 Physics
14 Biochemistry, Chemistry and Pharmacy
15 Biological Sciences
16 Medical Science

Universität FRANKFURT am Main ranked 169th in the 2008 THES-QS World University Ranking

Chulalongkorn University

2009-06-21T09:03:00.004+08:00

Chulalongkorn University (Thai: จุฬาลงกรณ์มหาวิทยาลัย) is the oldest university in Thailand and has long been considered the country's most prestigious university. It now has eighteen faculties and a number of schools and institutes. Regarded as the best and most selective university of Thailand, it normally attracts top students around the country. It is named after King Chulalongkorn (Rama V), and was established by his son and successor King Vajiravudh (Rama VI) in 1917 by combining the Royal Pages School and the College of Medicine.

Its campus occupies a vast area in downtown Bangkok, just next to the popular teenagers hangout Siam Square and a few steps away from the most prestigious and private sports club, The Royal Bangkok Sports Club. The symbol of the University is the Phra Kiao, a royal insignia. Diplomas were traditionally handed out at graduation by the King of Thailand, created and begun by King Prajadhipok (Rama VII). But at present, King Bhumibol Adulyadej (Rama IX) delegates the role to one of his daughters, Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn.

During the years 1973-1977 Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn was a student at the University, becoming the first member of the Thai Royal Family to graduate from a Thai university. Prior to that, Thai royals had always studied abroad.

History

A Brief History of Chulalongkorn University Chulalongkorn University, Thailand's first institution of higher learning, officially came into being in March, 1917. The groundwork and preparation for it in terms of planning and development, however, took place more than a century ago. The worldwide economic, social and political changes in the late nineteenth century contributed to Siam's decision to adapt herself in order to avoid being colonized by the Western powers (“Siam” became “Thailand” in the year 1939). Thus King Chulalongkorn (Rama V) has royal policy to strengthen and improve government so that the country could successfully resist the tide of colonialism. One of the major parts of the policy, which would later prove to be deep-rooted and highly effective, was to improve the Siamese educational system so as to produce capable personnel to work in both the public and private sectors. As a result, a school was founded in 1871 at the Royal Pages Barrack within the Grand Palace compound.

Later on, in 1882, King Chulalongkorn developed this school and gave it the name of "Suankularb". In the same year, the King also established other schools, namely the Army Cadet School, the Cartographic School, the School for Princes, and the School for Dhamma Studies.

In 1899 Prince Damrong Rajanupab, a younger brother of King Chulalongkorn who was the Minister of Interior at the time, submitted a proposal to found the Civil Service Training School with Phraya Wisutsuriyasak (M.R.Pia Malakul -- who later assumed the title of Chao Phraya Phrasadej Surendradhibodi) as the principal. However, since the students of the school had to work as royal page trainees in their third year of study before graduation, the name of the school was changed to the Royal Pages School in 1902. The Royal Pages School progressed steadily and produced an increasing number of graduates for the government each year. However, King Vajiravudh (Rama VI) saw that the original intention of his father, King Chulalongkorn, was to establish an institution of higher learning. In the beginning, the course of study was focused on government, but as time passed the curriculum should be expanded to include more disciplines so as to meet the expanding needs of the kingdom. Such disciplines included law, international relations, commerce, agriculture, engineering, medicine and teacher education. Thus King Vajiravudh ordered that the Royal Pages School become an institution of higher education and gave it the name the "Civil Service College of King Chulalongkorn" on January 1, 1911.

The Civil Service College received its original funding from the remaining sum of the money which had been contributed by members of the royal family, government officials and ordinary citizens to erect a statue of King Chulalongkorn the Great. After the statue was completed, about eight hundred thousand baht remained in the Royal Treasury Ministry;with interest the sum totalled 982,672 baht . King Vajiravudh gave this sum as the original capital of the college. Furthermore, he graciously donated the palace of his brother, the late Crown Prince Vajirunhis, as the site of the college. He also gave a large plot of land adjacent to the palace in the Patumwan district measuring about 523 acres in area, for its present use and future expansion. Later the Administration Building was constructed as the first building which belonged to the college from the beginning.

After the Civil Service College had been in operation for some time, King Vajiravudh considered that it had achieved a level of readiness. Therefore,he declared that it should become Chulalongkorn University, in honour of King Chulalongkorn,on March 26, 1917. The newly founded university was under the supervision of University Affairs Department, Ministry of Education. Phraya Anukijwithoon was the first principal (the title was changed to Rector in 1935). There was a University Council, which was responsible for policy making, planning, and advising on the affairs of the university. Prince Damrong Rajanupab was the Chairman of the Council and the Principal of the university was the Secretary.

When it was first founded, the university had 380 students taking classes in four faculties which were located in 2 campuses. The Faculty of Medicine was located at Siriraj Hospital, while the Faculties of Public Administration and of Engineering were at the Administration Building and the Faculty of Arts and Science was located at Prince Vajirunhis' palace. The latter three faculties were in Patumwan district. The Law School was under the responsibility of the Ministry of Justice until the university was ready to take over, and the Teachers' Training School was handed over to the Ministry of Education. The categories of students were the same as in the old Civil Service College.

In 1923, the university accepted high school graduates to study in the Faculty of Medicine, which was being supported by the Rockefeller Foundation to organize a Bachelor's Degree program. Five years later the first group of 18 graduates finished their studies, the first to be awarded degrees in the kingdom.

In 1929, the Faculty of Public Administration became the Faculty of Law and Political Science. In 1933, after the establishment of constitutional monarchy in 1932, the government transferred this faculty to Thammasat University, which was established in 1934. The result was that Chulalongkorn University had only three faculties during that time.

The development of Chulalongkorn University continued. From 1934 to 1958, the university emphasized improvement of undergraduate education; thus more faculties were established. In 1961 the university set up the Graduate School to be responsible for graduate level education. From 1962 on, the university started to focus on graduate education and began to set up research centers and institutes.

Academics

Chulalongkorn University consists of 20 faculties and schools:

Faculty of Allied Health Sciences
Faculty of Architecture
Faculty of Arts
Faculty of Commerce and Accountancy
Faculty of Communication Arts
Faculty of Dentistry
Faculty of Economics
Faculty of Education
Faculty of Engineering
Faculty of Fine and Applied Arts
Faculty of Law
Faculty of Medicine
Faculty of Nursing
Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences
Faculty of Political Science
Faculty of Psychology
Faculty of Science
Faculty of Veterinary Science
Graduate School
School of Sport Sciences

Chulalongkorn University ranked 166th in the 2008 THES-QS World University Ranking

Chulalongkorn University ranked 138th in the 2009 THES-QS World University Ranking

University of Lausanne

2009-06-17T19:21:00.006+08:00

The University of Lausanne (in French: Université de Lausanne) or UNIL in Lausanne, Switzerland was founded in 1537 as a school of theology, before being made a university in 1890. Today about 10,000 students and 2200 researchers study and work at the university. Approximately 1500 international students attend the university, which has a wide curriculum including exchange programs with several American universities.

Before 2005, the University applied the French education model with some minor differences. The academic degrees were the Demi-Licence, Licence, DEA / DESS, Doctorate. The University now follows the requirements of the Bologna process.

Together with the Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL) the university forms a vast campus at the shores of Lake Geneva.

History

The Academy, forerunner of the UNIL, was founded in 1537. Its vocation at that time was to train ministers for the church. The university enjoyed a certain renown due to the fact that it was the only French language Protestant school of theology.

As the centuries passed, the number of faculties increased and diversified until, in 1890, the Academy received the name and status of a university. From 1970, the university moved progressively from the old centre of Lausanne, around the Cathedral and Château, to its present site at Dorigny. The end of the 20th century witnessed the beginnings of an ambitious project aiming at greater co-operation and development among the French-speaking universities of Lausanne, Geneva, and Neuchâtel, together with the EPFL. In 2003 two new faculties were founded concentrating on the life and human sciences: the Faculty of biology and medicine; and the Faculty of earth science and environment.

Schools and Faculties

The University of Lausanne comprises 7 faculties:
Faculty of Arts
Faculty of Biology and Medicine (FBM)
Faculty of Business and Economics (HEC), also called HEC Lausanne
Faculty of Geosciences and Environment (GSE)
Faculty of Law and Criminal Justice
Faculty of Social and Political Sciences (SSP)
Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies

The University of Lausanne also comprises schools and different sections:
School of Criminal Justice (ESC)
School of French as a Foreign Language (EFLE)
Vacation Courses (CVAC)
Section of Pharmacy

University of Lausanne ranked 161st in the 2008 THES-QS World University Ranking

University of Lausanne ranked 168th in the 2009 THES-QS World University Ranking

VU Amsterdam

2009-06-15T19:35:00.005+08:00

The Vrije Universiteit (literal translation: "Free University") is a university in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The Dutch name is often abbreviated as VU. The board of trustees is the Vereniging VU-Windesheim, which also manages the Christelijke Hogeschool Windesheim University of Applied Sciences in Zwolle and VUmc, which is the university's Medical Center. The university is run by an executive board ("College van Bestuur" in Dutch) which makes decisions in consultation with the Board of Deans ("College van Decanen" in Dutch). The university is located on a compact urban campus in the southern part of Amsterdam in the Buitenveldert district.

The university should not be confused with the University of Amsterdam, which is a different university, located all over the city.

The VU University Amsterdam has about 18,000 students, most of which are full-time students. The number of faculty members and researchers is 2200 (of whom 300 are full professors). The teaching and research activities are supported by 1600 administrative, clerical, technical, and other employees. The university's annual budget is around US$500 million, about two third of which comes from the Dutch government. Tuition, research grants, and industrial contracts provide the rest.

History

The VU was founded in 1880 by Abraham Kuyper as the first orthodox-Protestant (Calvinist) university in The Netherlands. Kuyper was a Dutch politician, journalist, and prime minister of The Netherlands from 1901 to 1905. He was a professor of theology at the VU as well as the first '‘rector magnificus’ (President of the University).

Vrije Universiteit literally means Free University (better: Liberated University) to signify freedom from both government and church. The education itself, however, is not free of cost. To overcome this association, recently a decision was made to use the term VU University instead of Free University whenever the English translation is needed.

As at all accredited universities in The Netherlands, students pay a (government determined) tuition, which is currently (2009) around €1600/year for students from the European Union and ranges from €7000 to €9000/year for students from elsewhere. Most Dutch students receive a grant or loan from the government to cover tuition and living expenses.

Although current students and faculty members are adherents of many religions, as a consequence of its Protestant heritage, the VU has always placed a special emphasis on the social and cultural context in which it operates. Many faculties offer courses teaching students about the historical, social, and cultural issues related to their discipline, with course names like "Social Aspects of Science". Topics such as the consequences of science for society, ethics, and related issues are discussed.

Faculties

Arts
Centre for Educational Training, Assessment and Research
Dentistry / ACTA
Earth and Life Sciences
Economics and Business Administration
Human Movement Sciences
Law
Medicine
Philosophy
Psychology and Education
Sciences
Social Sciences
Theology

The language of instruction for the bachelor's courses is Dutch. However, many of the master's programmes are given entirely in English in order to attract students from outside The Netherlands. In fact, in some master's programmes, international students outnumber the Dutch students by a large margin.

The Ph.D. programme is different from that in the United Kingdom and the U.S.A. Rather than applying to the university for admission in the winter, prospective students must find a (full) professor who has a position for a Ph.D. student, called an AiO (Assistant in Opleiding--Assistant in Training), and contact him or her directly. Most professors and faculties advertise their open positions on their Websites. AiOs are paid a salary and are considered university employees. They do not have to pay tuition.

VU Amsterdam ranked 155th in the 2008 THES-QS World University ranking

VU Amsterdam ranked 165th in the 2009 THES-QS World University ranking