Along with Borås' reputation as a textile city, the university is known for its fashion and management programs, as being some of the best in the world.

Research is organised in six areas: Business and IT, The Human Perspective in Care, Library and Information Science, Swedish Centre for Resource Recovery, Educational Work and Textiles and Fashion (design and general).

The university is entitled to award doctoral degrees within four of these areas: Library and Information Science, Resource Recovery, The Human Perspective in Care and Textiles and Fashion (design and general).

[1] The University of Borås was founded through the Swedish Higher Education reform of 1977.

At that time, two educational programmes were already in place: the preschool seminar (founded in 1966) and the Librarian College (established 1972).