The History of the Student Meeting

The Nordic Student Meeting 2027 follows a long-standing tradition of student-organised meetings between the Nordic countries. The first student meetings were held between 1834 and 1875, when students from the universities of Uppsala, Lund, Copenhagen and Christiania (Oslo) met in each other’s cities. Over the following century, meetings were organised sporadically, particularly during the 1980s and 1990s. In modern times, an attempt was made in 2010 to transition to regular gatherings, and five meetings were successfully held until 2018, but no new meetings have been organised since.

Next year, Uppsala University will celebrate 550 years since its foundation in 1477, making it the oldest university in the Nordic region. This also means that next year will mark five and a half centuries of students in the Nordic region, providing a natural opportunity to revive the tradition of student meetings and to mark and celebrate this anniversary.

However, the original student meetings were characterised by certain ideas that would today be seen as outdated. The Nordic Student Meeting 2027 does not draw inspiration from these aspects of the history of student meetings, but is instead rooted in our present day and organises a meeting that is open to all with the aim of bringing students in the Nordic region closer together.