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Private company

University Centre in Svalbard

Logo: unis.no3

Norwegian state-owned limited company established in 1993

The University Centre in Svalbard (Norwegian: Universitetssenteret på Svalbard AS; UNIS) is a Norwegian state-owned limited company that is involved in research and provides some higher education in Arctic studies. The company is wholly owned by the Ministry of Education and Research, and the universities of Oslo, Bergen, Tromsø, NTNU and NMBU appoint the board of directors. It is led by a director appointed by the board for a four-year term.2 It is part of Ministry of Education and Research of Norway.1 Wikipedia text CC BY-SA 4.0

Last updated Oct 21, 2026.

Overview

1993Founded1
  • HeadquartersLongyearbyen1
  • Websitewww.unis.no
  • Legal formaksjeselskap1

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Longyearbyen UNIS
Photo: Dagny, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons5

The University Centre in Svalbard (Norwegian: Universitetssenteret på Svalbard AS; UNIS) is a Norwegian state-owned limited company that is involved in research and provides some higher education in Arctic studies. The company is wholly owned by the Ministry of Education and Research, and the universities of Oslo, Bergen, Tromsø, NTNU and NMBU appoint the board of directors. It is led by a director appointed by the board for a four-year term. The centre is the world’s northernmost research and higher education institution, in Longyearbyen at 78° N latitude. The courses offered fall into five main science disciplines: Arctic biology, Arctic geology, Arctic geophysics, Arctic technology and Arctic safety.2

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Although UNIS has no formal tuition fee, students are required to pay a semester fee of 580 kr (about €65). For overnight scientific cruises, fieldwork, and excursions, students must pay a daily rate of 200 kr for food. UNIS has a library, established in 1993. A significant part of the library is electronic: the company is subscribed to a number of electronic databases that can be accessed from the library computers. UNIS has several research laboratories and a research ship Hanna Resvoll and two Polarcircles UNIS Sila and UNIS Kolga.

Before 2021 most students at UNIS used to live in five renovated mining barracks in Nybyen, a settlement on the southern outskirts of Longyearbyen (30–40 minutes by foot). Since September 2014, some students live in the newly built campus Sjøskrenten, which is a 2-minute walk from UNIS. Both campuses are owned and administered by the Arctic Student Welfare Organization in Tromsø. Nybyen student housing is located in an area with high avalanche risks from the nearby mountain of Gruvefjellet. This led to the construction of a new student housing Elvesletta, completed in the summer of 2021 and located in the city center, which allowed to stop using Nybyen. Elvesletta student housing has a capacity of 300 students and the construction project cost 400 million Norwegian Krones.

From Wikipedia’s article on University Centre in Svalbard, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4

Subsidiaries and ownership

Parent company

  • Ministry of Education and Research of Norway

From Wikidata.1

Timeline

  1. 1993Founded Founded1

Sources

The numbers on this page point here. Each one links to the record it came from.

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