Aarhus University (, abbreviated AU) is a public research university with its main campus located in Aarhus, Denmark. It is the second largest and second oldest university in Denmark. The university is part of the Coimbra Group, the Guild, and Utrecht Network of European universities and is a member of the European University Association.
The university was founded in Aarhus, Denmark, in 1928 and comprises five faculties in Arts, Natural Sciences, Technical Sciences, Health, and Business and Social Sciences and has a total of twenty-seven departments. It is home to over thirty internationally recognised research centres, including fifteen centres of excellence funded by the Danish National Research Foundation. The university has been ranked among the top 100 world's best universities. Times Higher Education ranks Aarhus University in the top 10 of the most beautiful universities in Europe (2018).
The university's alumni include Bjarne Stroustrup, the inventor of programming language C++; Queen Margrethe II of Denmark; Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark; and Anders Fogh Rasmussen, former prime minister of Denmark and a secretary general of NATO.
Nobel Laureate Jens Christian Skou (Chemistry, 1997) conducted his groundbreaking work on the Na/K-ATPase in Aarhus and remained employed at the university until his retirement. Two other nobel laureates, namely Trygve Haavelmo (Economics, 1989) and Dale T. Mortensen (Economics, 2010), were affiliated with the university.
History
Early developments
Aarhus University was founded on 11 September 1928 as Universitetsundervisningen i Jylland ("University Studies in Jutland") with a budget of 33,000 DKK and an enrollment of 64 students, which rose to 78 during the first semester. The university was founded as a response to the increasing number of students at the University of Copenhagen after World War I. Classrooms were rented from the Technical College and the teaching corps consisted of one professor of philosophy and four associate professors of Danish, English, German and French. Along with the Universitets-Samvirket ("University Association") which consisted of representatives of Aarhus' businesses, organisations and institutions, the municipality of Aarhus had fought since 1921 to have Denmark's next university located in the city.
In 1929, the municipality of Aarhus gave the university land with a landscape of rolling hills. The design of the university buildings and 12 ha campus area was assigned to architects C. F. Møller, Kay Fisker and Povl Stegmann, who won the architectural competition in 1931. Construction of the first buildings began a year later, but the campus was developed in stages and is still under development . Since 1939, C. F. Møller Architects has been responsible for the architectural design of Aarhus University in accordance with the original functionalist design key, perhaps best exemplified by the characteristic yellow brick and tile.
The first buildings were finished in 1933 and housed the Departments of Chemistry, Physics and Anatomy. These departments later moved to newer buildings at the campus and the original building complex now house Department of Psychology and Department of Political Science. The construction of the first stage was funded solely by donations which totaled 935,000 Dkr and the buildings covered an area of 4,190m2. One of the most generous contributors to the first stage was De Forenede Teglværker i Aarhus ("The United Tileworks of Aarhus") led by director K. Nymark. Forenede Teglværker decided to donate 1 million yellow bricks and tiles worth c. 50,000 Dkr and later decided to extend the donation to all bricks needed. The inauguration on 11 September 1933, marked the first official use of the name Aarhus University and was celebrated in a tent on campus, attended by King Christian X, Queen Alexandrine, their son Crown Prince Frederick and Prime Minister Stauning together with 1000 invited guests. On 23 April 1934, Aarhus University was given permission to hold examinations by the king and on 10 October 1935, Professor Dr. phil. Ernst Frandsen was appointed the first rector of the university.