The students considered the traditional universities undemocratic and controlled by the professors and wanted more influence as well as more flexible teaching methods.

Back in 1972, these educational ideas were both unorthodox and controversial, but the traditional universities in Denmark have now adopted much of the original RU concept themselves, not least the concept of group project work, which is today a recognised academic method.

RU can also be said to have brought to Denmark the concepts of interdisciplinarity and less well-defined boundaries between academic fields, which originated in English-language academia.

[4] Roskilde University offers higher education at bachelor-, master, and PhD levels within four main areas: humanities, humanistic technologies, social science and science.

[5][6] Roskilde University has 4 departments (institutes) specializing in very different areas from Mathematics to International Development: The university offers three international bachelor programmes: Some notable alumni and professors from RUC include: