[5] In 1918, university-level teaching returned to Turku with the founding of Åbo Akademi, an exclusively Swedish-speaking institution.

The Board is the highest decision-making organ of the university and is made up of 10 members from academia, society and studentship.

[1] It develops the university's operating processes and approves plans concerning its financing and activities; it decide on the guidelines of granting appropriations; it give its opinion in any matters of significance that concern the university in principle and the Board approves the service regulations and other similar rules.

The Rector directs the activities and processes of the university and solves any issues concerning its general management.

The Main Building and the surrounding complex was built in the fifties on what became known as the University Hill.

The campus is constantly expanding, the latest example is the Medisiina D building which houses the facilities of the Faculty of Medicine.

The university also owns the Botanic Garden at Ruissalo as well as the research station at the Island of Seili.

As defined in its strategy 2030,[17] the university's multidisciplinary research is profiled through six thematic areas which are biodiversity and sustainability; future technologies and digital society; cultural memory and social change; children, young people and learning; health, diagnostics and drug development; and sea and maritime studies.

The Chancellor, appointed by the President of Finland upon proposal of the Finnish Government, was to promote science and scholarship, look after the general interests of the university and supervise its activities.

Professor Pekka Puska was the last person to hold this position until it was abolished based on the decision of the University Board.