The university was founded in Turku in 1640 as the Royal Academy of Åbo under the Swedish Empire, and moved to Helsinki in 1828 under the sponsorship of Tsar Alexander I.

[4] As of 1 August 2005, the university complies with the harmonized structure of the Europe-wide Bologna Process and offers bachelor, master, licenciate, and doctoral degrees.

Teaching in English is extensive throughout the university at master, licentiate, and doctoral levels, making it a de facto third language of instruction.

[9] The first predecessor of the university, The Cathedral School of Åbo, was presumably founded in 1276 for education of boys to become servants of the Church.

As the university was founded in 1640 by Queen Christina of Sweden (1626–1689) in Turku (Sw. Åbo), as the Åbo Kungliga Akademi (Latin: Regia Academia Aboensis), the senior part of the school formed the core of the new university, while the junior year courses formed a grammar school.

The university became a community subscribing to the new Humboldtian ideals of science and culture, studying humanity and its living environment by means of scientific methods.

As the scientific disciplines developed, Finland received ever more scholarly knowledge and highly educated people, some of whom entered rapidly evolving industry or the government.

Members of the academic community promoted the international relations of the new state and the development of its economic life.

[10] On an international front academics from Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Iceland sent letters to the diplomatic representations of Finland in their respective countries warning about a weakening of the Nordic unity that would result from diminishing the role of Swedish in the University of Helsinki.

[10] In the 20th century, scholarly research at the University of Helsinki reached the level of the European elite in many disciplines.

In the Continuation War the university was heavily damaged by bombs during a soviet air raid on 27 February 1944.

[12] After World War II, university research focused on improving Finnish living conditions and supporting major changes in the structure of society and business.

[vague][example needed] The progress of scientific development created many new disciplines and faculties at the University of Helsinki.

[13] In March 2014, two people were arrested and in June 2014 sentenced to prison for three years for plotting a mass murder at the university.

The University of Helsinki offers a wide range of master's degree programmes, taught entirely in English.

The historical City Centre Campus has been the hub of activity ever since the university moved from Turku to Helsinki in the early 19th century.

Most of the buildings on the campus have a major architectural significance ranging from the dominating Neo-Classical, through the Jugendstil, to 20th century Modernism.

Helsinki was to become Finland's window to the world; a European city to which the university belonged as an integral part.

The Kumpula Campus, housing the Faculty of Science, is located four kilometers north from the centre of Helsinki near tram lines 6 and 8.

The campus houses the Departments of Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics and Statistics, Computer Science, and Geosciences and Geography.

The Chemicum, the building housing the Department of Chemistry and VERIFIN (Finnish Institute for Verification of the Chemical Weapons Convention), and the Physicum, which provides facilities for physics, geology and geography are located on Kumpula campus surrounding a square named after the Finnish Nobel prize winner, A. I. Virtanen.

The Kumpula Sports Centre is planned for the recreational use of both university staff and students and citizens of Helsinki alike.

Completed in 2004, the Exactum provides facilities for seismology, computer science and mathematical subjects, as well as administrative services.

Just a few kilometres from the City Centre Campus, the Meilahti area has been transformed into a cradle of top research on medicine, 'Medilahti'.

The Meilahti and Ruskeasuo areas form a close-knit complex providing a meeting place for medical education, international top-level research and nursing.

The Finnish Game and Fisheries Research Institute and the Finnish Food Safety Authority, Evira, have also moved to Viikki and negotiations are under way to relocate MTT Agrifood Research Finland to Viikki to complement the Department of Economics and Management.

It is responsible for the national botanical, zoological, geological and paleontological collections consisting of samples from around the world.

As of 1998[update], it has 32,000 members and is one of the world's wealthiest student organizations, with assets of several hundred million euros.

The union has been at the centre of student politics from the 19th Century nationalist movements, through the actions of the New Left in the 1960s, up to the present.