Free University of Bozen-Bolzano

The Free University of Bozen-Bolzano (Italian: Libera Università di Bolzano, German: Freie Universität Bozen, Ladin: Università Liedia de Bulsan) is a university primarily located in Bolzano, South Tyrol, Italy. It was founded on 31 October 1997 and is organized into five Faculties.

The Free University of Bozen-Bolzano (unibz) aims to offer students a multilingual, practice-oriented education that meets the demands of the local and the European labor market. Lectures and seminars are held in Italian, German and English. The only exception is the Faculty of Education, which offers Italian, German and Ladin speaking students separate training sections. The university offers study programmes ranging from bachelor's degrees to doctorates.

The emphasis of teaching is to provide theoretically sound and practice-orientated training. A large proportion of educational activities take place as seminars, lectures given by guest speakers, practical training and workshops. Within the framework of the academic exchange program students are encouraged to spend one or more semesters at universities abroad.

Campus

The university has three campuses: at Bolzano, Brixen and Bruneck. The buildings in Bolzano were designed by the architects Matthias Bischoff and Roberto Azzola of Zürich and those at Brixen by Regina Kohlmeyer and Jens Oberst from Stuttgart. The latter won in 2005 the 9th architecture prize of the city of Oderzo.

Rectors

The rectors of the university have been Alfred Steinherr, an economist from Luxembourg, from 1998 to 2003, the Swiss linguist Rita Franceschini, from 2004 to 2008, and the German sociologist Walter Lorenz, from 2008 to 2016. The Italian engineer Paolo Lugli is the actual rector since 2017.

Studium Generale

Since 2011, there has been a multidisciplinary Studium Generale course, which offers a wide range of lectures in fields of general interest.

Research

A total of 917 projects of basic and applied research have been conducted within the university since 1998.

The university has scientific and technological laboratories at each of its sites, at the NOI Techpark, a local technological and innovation hub, and at the Versuchszentrum Laimburg, an agronomy research institute.

Library

According to library ranking system issued by German library networks (BIX project) in 2009, this university has the second best library amongst German-speaking states (Germany, Switzerland, Austria and South Tyrol in Italy).

Students activities

The members of the student advisory board are elected every two years, however, between two elections a petition for the representative could be announced. Student representative are members of the University Council, the Academic Senate, the Faculty Council, the Course Council, the Equal Opportunities Committee and the Didactic Joint Committee.

The South Tyrolean Student association is the most important South Tyrolean association for students. Beside the head office in Bolzano there are seven branch offices in Austria and Italy. The sh.asus was founded in 1955 as a non-profit association. It represents South Tyrolean students studying abroad and students in South Tyrol.

The M.U.A., Movimento Universitario Altoatesino, is an association which has been recognize by the Autonomous Province of Bozen-Bolzano and has been founded in the 1993. Its principal purposes are "to defend and ease the right to study of the students and the working students of the university" and "to organize conferences, debatings, conventions, cultural, social and university seminar". The association operates in Bolzano and promotes the project WEBZ, "the first web-tv of South-Tyrol made by youngs for youngs."

Kikero is a cultural association, which has been founded in 2000 and organizes activities such as the debating club and the movie nights. Furthermore, Kikero is also responsible for the university magazine "Kflyer".

SCUB, Sports Club University Bozen-Bolzano, is the students' association that mainly deals with sports activities and that organizes every year the SNOWDAYS, Europe's biggest wintersport event for students from all over Italy and the EU. SCUB comprises also the UniParty team, which is in charge of throwing university parties for unibz students.

A further student association is the Bozen – Bolzano local committee AIESEC, which organizes international exchange programmes to permit university students to get in touch with the working world.

PRO – Students for Business also encourages students to connect with the working environment through the enhancement of economic and business activities.

The university also has a choir called UnibzVoices, conducted by Prof. Johann Van der Sandt who teaches "Music and Communication" at the Brixen College of Education.

The most recent student association is the Alumni Club that comprises graduates of the Free University of Bozen–Bolzano.