University College (Scandinavia) - Translation

Translation

University college is the most widely used official English translation in Sweden, Norway and Denmark, although some such institutions use the term university in English instead (for instance Malmö University and Södertörn University). The terminology may be confusing to foreigners as university colleges are not constituent colleges of another university as some may understand the word literally, but rather institutions in their own right and standing.

The Swedish term högskola and the Norwegian term høyskole or høgskole would mean "high school" in a word-by-word translation. This translation is also misleading, as these institutions provide tertiary level education, not secondary education as American high schools do.

Some of these university colleges do aspire a lift to full university status by the Swedish or Norwegian government, and have therefore changed their translated English name to "university", although they are not a university by Swedish and Norwegian law. A full university in Sweden requires extensive own research, a breadth of academic disciplines and a licence to award doctor's degrees in all fields it teaches. In Norway, university status may be conferred to an institution offering at least four PhD programmes.

The term högskola or høyskole is also used by a number of specialised universities, especially the technical universities. Some subunits of the universities in Sweden also use of the term "högskola" to mark their status within the larger university or for traditional reasons. For instance, several engineering faculties call themselves "teknisk högskola" in Swedish, like Lunds Tekniska Högskola and Linköpings Tekniska Högskola which both were originally established independently of their respective universities.