Om Universitetssenteret på Svalbard

The University Centre in Svalbard (UNIS) is the world’s northernmost higher education institution, located in Longyear at 78º N. UNIS offers high quality courses at the undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate level in Arctic Biology, Arctic Geology, Arctic Geophysics and Arctic Technology.

Background
UNIS was established in 1993 to provide university level education in Arctic studies, to carry out high quality research, and to contribute to the development of Svalbard as an international research platform. UNIS’ geographical position gives it a unique advantage, enabling students and faculty to use nature as a laboratory, arena for observation and data collection.

UNIS is a share-holding company, owned by the Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research. The four traditional Norwegian universities; Oslo, Bergen, Trondheim and Tromsø, are represented on our Board of Directors. Thus, UNIS works closely with the mainland universities and the UNIS courses are intended to complement the teaching given by the mainland universities.

Students
About 350 students from all over the world take one or more courses every year at UNIS. The student body consist of 50 % Norwegian and 50 % international students and English is the official language at UNIS. There are no tuition fees and there is affordable student accommodation in “Nybyen”.

Faculty
UNIS’ faculty consist currently of 20 fulltime professors, 21 assistant professors and 120 guest lecturers who specialize in arctic issues. UNIS researchers work in collaboration with Norwegian and foreign research institutions and are actively involved in a large number of joint research projects.