Universities

Only the 10 official cantonal universities and the 2 federal institutes of technology offer courses according to the Bologna declaration with fully recognized Swiss diplomas and are allowed to confer doctoral and PhD titles. If you want to be sure about the quality of the institution of your choice as one of the twelve Swiss universities, please watch out for their registered trademark:

Swiss Education System

Cantonal Universities

There are ten cantonal universities in Switzerland : those of Basel, Berne, Fribourg, Geneva, Lausanne, Lucerne, Neuchâtel, St. Gallen, Zurich and Lugano (Italian-speaking Switzerland). Most of them have been evolving over a number of centuries in step with social and economic needs, always in harmony with a humanist ideal.

The oldest Swiss university is the one of Basel. It was founded in 1460 and has thus been in existence for over half a millennium. The Universities of Italian-speaking Switzerland and Lucerne are the most recent ones.

Although each of these universities has its own characteristics, they all basically have the same structure. They are divided into faculties or departments, including theology, law, economics and social science, arts, natural science, and medicine (although Fribourg and Neuchâtel offer only basic medical courses). St Gallen specialises in economics, social science, and law; Lucerne in Catholic theology, humanities and law. The Italian-speaking university offers courses in architecture, economics, communication sciences, and informatics.

The following are considered as institutions of higher education: the Graduate Institute for International Studies (Institut universitaire de hautes études internationales IUHEI) in Geneva, the Graduate Institute for Advanced Public Administration (Institut de hautes études en administration publique IDHEAP) in Lausanne, and the Graduate Institute of Development Studies (Institut universitaire d’études du développement, IUED) in Geneva.

In addition to the institutes of higher education mentioned above, there are a number of private colleges which offer courses based on the Anglo-Saxon system. The studies and examinations offered by these colleges are not recognized in Switzerland. Some of these colleges may even offer courses which are not serious. We therefore advise anyone interested in following such a course to make careful initial investigations into the problem of recognition.