The Ivan Franko National University of Lviv began life as a Jesuit college in 1661. It started with two faculties, in philosophy and theology and in 1919, when Galicia became part of the Republic of Poland, the university was named after Jaz Kazimierz. In 1940, it changed its name to the Ivan Franko National University of Lviv, after the famous Ukrainian writer, politician and activist. Ivan Franko studied at the university’s faculty of philosophy in the 1870s.
It became a national university in 1999 and is one of the oldest universities in Eastern Europe.
The university comprises 17 faculties: biology, chemistry, journalism, economics, electronics, philology, philosophy, physics, geography, geology, history, foreign languages, culture and art, applied mathematics and informatics, mechanics and mathematics, law and international relations. It also includes three colleges, an Institute of Postgraduate Study and Pre-University Training. The faculty of economics is based in both Sambor and Chervonohrad.
The mathematics departments are considered to be some of the best in Eastern Europe. Stefan Banach, father of functional analysis, was a former professor and scholar and greatly influenced the programme.
The university publishes over 40 science journals and there are extensive science and research facilities on campus. These include some 17 laboratories, seven institutes, six museums, an astronomical observatory and a botanical garden. Six of the university’s buildings have been granted a national heritage status.
It has established over 90 agreements with other universities and higher education institutions from 33 different countries.
It is located in Lviv, in Lviv Oblast, Western Ukraine. It is the seventh largest city in the Ukraine, with a population of approximately 730,000 people.
