The University of Latvia with its 15,000 students, 13 faculties and more than 20 research institutes is one of the largest comprehensive and leading research universities in the Baltic States. The University offers more than 130 state-accredited academic and professional study programmes. At University of Latvia, research is conducted in over 50 research fields which represent four main areas of inquiry: the humanities, sciences, social sciences, and education sciences. The University of Latvia pays great attention to the development of international collaboration. At present the University of Latvia has signed more than 500 agreements with 326 institutions in 31 European countries within ERASMUS programme.

The University of Latvia is renowned for its research on Latvian studies, material science, information and communication technologies, process simulation and socio-economic as well as environmental and health problems of the transition period.

At UL, research is conducted in over 50 research fields which represent 4 main areas of enquiry: the humanities, sciences, social sciences, and education sciences.

With the help of the funding of the European Structural Funds, procurement and modernisation of equipment is currently carried out in many institutes and faculties.

The institutes of the University of Latvia have longstanding research traditions, and they cooperate with their respective faculties. For instance, the Institute of Solid State Physics is a European Union 6th Framework Programme Center of Excellence, where advanced research is conducted on nanotechnologies, holography, and robot technologies; the Institute of Educational Research of the Faculty of Education and Psychology carries out comparative research on education in cooperation with approx. 50 countries all over the world.