about university

About University

The University of Latvia is a state educational institution located in Riga. It was founded in 1919, on the basis of the former Riga Polytechnic (founded in 1862). Scientific activity at the University of Latvia occurs in faculties and scientific institutes. The University of Latvia conducts research in more than 50 research areas and provides permanent access to all Research and Scientific Laboratories.

The University of Latvia offers Undergraduate, Graduate, and Doctoral levels of study, and in October 2014 more than 14,000 students, including Ph.D. and exchange students, were enrolled in various study programs. The University offers more than 130 state-accredited academic and professional study programs. Almost one-third of them studied business and economics-related programs.

UL has a crucial role in the development of society’s academic traditions, national economy, education, environment and health protection, Latvian language, and culture. The opinion of the University of Latvia substantially contributes to public administration decision-making.

Faculties

• Faculty of Biology
• Faculty of Computing
• Faculty of Physics, Mathematics, Optometry
• Faculty of Geography and Earth Sciences
• Faculty of Chemistry
• Faculty of Humanities
• Faculty of Theology
• Faculty of History and Philosophy
• Faculty of Medicine
• Faculty of Business, Management, and Economics
• Faculty of Law
• Faculty of Education, Psychology, and Art
• Faculty of Social Sciences

International Cooperation

The University of Latvia pays great attention to the development of international cooperation with foreign educational institutions, and private and state organizations to promote international identification, and exchanges and to strengthen a good reputation. Nowadays the main aim of the collaboration is to focus on the content and quality to make internationalization a balanced element of education and research. 

The University of Latvia takes part in:

• bilateral cooperation agreements (with 219 universities in 51 countries);
• membership in international university organizations and networks;
• participation in international educational and research programs and projects;
• exchanges of students and teachers (exchange statistics);
• International cooperation on the faculty, institute, department, and individual levels.

Active participation within bilateral partnership agreements and European programs has promoted wide cooperation activities within the ERASMUS+ program. The number of agreements with European partner universities has grown tremendously within the last 5 years anticipating more intensive exchanges of students and teachers. At present, the University of Latvia has signed more than 1000 agreements with 450 educational institutions in 33 European programs and over 35 Inter-institutional agreements with 17 partner countries.