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 with courses taught in German, Italian, and English. The Free University of Bozen-Bolzano regularly achieves top positions in national and international rankings.
Campus
The university has three campuses: in Bolzano, Brixen and Bruneck. The buildings in Bolzano were designed by the architects Matthias Bischoff and Roberto Azzola[3] of Zürich[4] and those in Brixen by Regina Kohlmeyer and Jens Oberst from Stuttgart. The latter won the 9th architecture prize of the city of Oderzo in 2005.[5]
Rectors
Previous rectors of the university were Luxembourg economist Alfred Steinherr (1998 - 2003), Swiss linguist Rita Franceschini (2004 - 2008), and German sociologist Walter Lorenz (2008 - 2016).[6] Italian engineer Paolo Lugli was the rector from 2017 until 2024. Alex Weissensteiner has been since 2024 the rector at the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano. Alex Weissensteiner is a professor of quantitative finance. He completed his doctoral studies at the Leopold-Franzens University of Innsbruck. In the following years, he conducted research and taught at the Universities of Innsbruck and Liechtenstein
Faculties
Economics and Management
The Faculty of Economics and Management is based in Bolzano and Bruneck. It offers four bachelor's, five master's, and three PhD degree programs. The Faculty of Economics and Managment is currently ranked 176th among the best 1,600 universities worldwide in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2024. Moreover, the Free University of Bolzano also excels in key performance areas, achieving very high scores of 90 out of 100 in International Outlook and Research Quality. [7].
In the 2017 THE World’s Best Small Universities Rankings, Free University of Bozen-Bozano was ranked among the best 10 small universities worldwide.
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Education
The Faculty of Education is based in Brixen and offers three bachelor's, three master's, and one PhD program.
The main research areas of the faculty include:
Educational and development projects and processes for different age groups and contexts
Social dynamics, social cohesion, citizenship and solidarity systems
Languages and communication for a multicultural and multilingual society
Engineering
The Faculty of Engineering is based in Bolzano and offers five bachelor's, five master's, and three PhD degree programs.
Agricultural, Environmental and Food Sciences
The Faculty of Agricultural, Environmental and Food Sciences offers two bachelor's, four master's, and two PhD programs.
Design and Art
The Faculty for Design and Art offers two bachelor's and two master's.
The main research areas of the faculty include:[9]
Visual culture and its impact on society
Phenomena, processes and results of three-dimensional projects
Theories, forms and languages of design, art and visual culture
The faculty also operates a fab lab named Bitz, which is also open to users not affiliated with unibz.
Since 2011, there has been a multidisciplinary Studium Generale course, which offers a wide range of lectures in fields of general interest.[10]
Research
A total of 917 projects of basic and applied research have been conducted within the university since 1998.[11]
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.
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[12] 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 recognized 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 organizing 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.
Bibliography
Hans Karl Peterlini & Hannes Obermair (eds), Universitas Est. Essays and documents on the history of education in Tyrol/South-Tyrol, 2 Vol.[13] (Bozen-Bolzano University Press, Raetia Verlag, Bozen/Bolzano 2008), ISBN978-88-7283-316-2
Klaus Kempf, Franz Berger, The Library as a Service Point. The Case of the Bozen University Library: Planning, Building, Financing, in "LIBER Quarterly", 10, 2000, pp. 108–116.[14] (Download PDF 52 KB)
Universitätsreden an der Freien Universität Bozen / Discorsi d'ateneo alla Libera Università di Bolzano / Public Talks at the Free University of Bozen, 6 voll., Bolzano, Bozen-Bolzano University Press, 2005-ss. ISBN (ISSN) 2494716-7
^Christine Plieger-De Biasi, Thomas Simma, Freie Universität Bozen – Libera Universita di Bolzano – Free University of Bozen-Bolzano. The Architecture Competition for the Main Site, Vienna-Bolzano, Folio, 1998. ISBN978-3-85256-105-9
