University of Lausanne

The University of Lausanne, known as UNIL, is a university in Lausanne, Switzerland, founded in 1537 as a school of Protestant theology and made a university in 1890. It began as the Schola Lausannensis, one year after Bern annexed the Barony of Vaud from the Duchy of Savoy, to train pastors, and was for some years the only French-language Protestant school of theology until the Academy of Geneva opened in 1559. In the seventeenth century it became known as the Academy of Lausanne. It is the second-oldest university in Switzerland and one of the oldest in the world in continuous operation. It has about 15,000 students and, together with the Federal Polytechnic School of Lausanne, forms a vast campus on the shores of Lake Geneva.