Inauguration of Professors

The Inauguration of Professors is a public ceremony where newly appointed professors are installed in office by the Vice-Chancellor and deliver their inaugural addresses. The ceremony has its roots in the medieval university.

The ceremony begins with a precisely organised procession led by students carrying the flags of Uppsala’s many ‘student nations’. In the gallery of the University Main Building, the new professors start walking down the left staircase while the Vice-Chancellor and their following, including specially invited guests such as the Archbishop and the County Governor, walk down the right staircase.

The Doctoral Conferment Ceremony and the Inauguration of Professors are the two ceremonies which exist at all Swedish universities and research university colleges.

Watch the inaguration of Professors in the Grand Auditorium 2022 

The history of the ceremony

Inaugurations of professors are documented from December 1625 and have been held at Uppsala University every year since. But tradition also requires renewal. Since a few years, all professors are now inaugurated in one large inauguration ceremony each year in the University Main Building but they give their inaugural lectures by Faculty in the week leading up to the inauguration.

Inaugural lectures

Here you can watch and listen to inaugural lectures given in previous years. Some are given in Swedish and some in English.

Contact

Do you have questions regarding the inauguration of professors? Contact akademiskafester@uadm.uu.se

Attire

Inauguration Ceremony

Installandi (those to be inaugurated):
The new professors wear formal attire – tie and tails with white bow tie and black vest or full-length dress. (Black dresses are not obligatory). If a national/folk costume is worn, it must be of the formal variety.

Participants in the procession wear formal attire: tie and tails with white tie and black vest or full-length dress with decorations (major).

For spectators not participating in the procession there is no dress code.

Banquet

Formal attire for all but white vest with tie and tails.

Last modified: 2023-02-21