University of Ljubljana (Univerza v Ljubljani, UL) is the oldest, largest, and internationally best-ranked university in Slovenia, being among the top 500 universities according to the Academic Ranking of World Universities Shanghai ranking (ARWU). The university was founded in 1919 and encompasses 23 faculties, 3 art academies, and 3 associated members.
STUDY – In terms of the number of students, UL ranks among the largest HEI in Europe with more than 40.000 students. In terms of the number of employees, UL ranks as a medium-sized higher education institution and employs approximately 6.000 employees, with more than 3.500 academic staff. Study programmes at UL cover all ISCED areas in the first and second cycle study programmes and lead the way in some new developments in technology and research (cognitive science, nanotechnologies, environmental sciences, biomedicine, etc.).
HR EXCELLENCE - From 2008 UL is committed to respecting the principles of the European Charter for Researchers and the Code of Conduct for Recruitment of Researchers, which led to the award of the “HR Excellence in Research” in 2013.
RESEARCH ACTIVITY - UL is very active in national and international R&D and educational programmes and creates almost half of the research results of Slovenia. In 2019 UL researchers worked in 307 research groups on 168 national research programmes, 403 national research projects with more than 4.252 registered researchers.
INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH - UL is also very active in international research and education programmes. In the programming period 2007-2013, the UL altogether cooperated in 745 European projects, including 163 FP7 projects, which ranked UL in the first place in the EU-13 countries among the research organisations (source MIRRIS report). In 2019, UL was involved in 528 European projects. Up to now, the UL has been involved in 155 HORIZON 2020 projects (including 4 ERC grants, 1 ERA Chair, 1 Twinning project and 24 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions), 164 ERASMUS+ KA2, K3, Jean Monnet and Sport projects and 107 projects of the European territorial cooperation programme.
TTO - To protect the university intellectual property developed through the public financed research projects and to improve the technology transfer from the university to the industry, a central university Technology Transfer Office was established in 2007. University develops and accelerates the research also through the University Committee for R&D, and Committee for Innovation, which consists of representatives of most propulsive Faculties. University Incubator and Institute for Innovation and Development and the Slovenian Innovation Hub are three other units in which the University of Ljubljana supports innovation and development in different ways along with laboratories and other research units within Faculties.
Biotechnical Faculty is one of the largest faculties of the University of Ljubljana, with 600 employees and over 3000 students per year. It consists of 7 departments,
including the Department of Wood Science & Technology (50 employees, around 250 students).
The primary activity of the Department of Wood Science & Technology is education on higher/university level, as well as an MSc and PhD level. The department is also a research and development institution in the field of wood science and technology in Slovenia, with a strong co-operation with Slovenian wood-processing industry. Research activities cover wood anatomy, dendrochronology, wood drying, wood pathology and preservation, wood coatings, wooden constructions, saw-milling, wood chemistry, wood-based materials and products, wood bonding, wood machining and economic investigations in the wood processing sector. Among other fields, it has expertise in wood liquefaction and use of liquefied wood to produce various polymer materials for bonding of wood, in wood modification, development of novel wood preservatives and in fungal deterioration processes of wood.