Basel University is founded in 1460

Basel University is founded in 1460

The University of Basel is located in Basel, Switzerland. Founded on 4 April 1460, it is Switzerland’s oldest university and among the world’s oldest surviving universities. The university is traditionally counted among the leading institutions of higher learning in the country.

The associated Basel University Library is the largest and among the most important libraries in the country. The university hosts the faculties of theology, law, medicine, humanities and social sciences, science, psychology, and business and economics, as well as numerous cross-disciplinary subjects and institutes, such as the Biozentrum for biomedical research and the Institute for European Global Studies. In 2016, the University boasted 12,852 students and 377 professors. International students accounted for 24 percent of the student body.

In its over 500-year history the university has been home to Erasmus of Rotterdam, Paracelsus, Daniel Bernoulli, Leonhard Euler, Jacob Burckhardt, Friedrich Nietzsche, Tadeusz Reichstein, Karl Jaspers, Carl Gustav Jung, Karl Barth and Jeanne Hersch. The institution is associated with nine Nobel prize winners and two Presidents of the Swiss Confederation.