Founded in 1965, the University of Umeå is one of the largest research and teaching units in Northern Sweden. The university has prioritised twelve research environments as "Areas of Excellence" including Gender studies, Northern studies, and Social welfare research, Umeå University has a long tradition of womens’s and gender studies. Umeå Centre for Gender Studies (UCGS) is an interdisciplinary centre responsible for gender research and is one of three research environments in Sweden appointed as a Centre of Gender Excellence by the Swedish Research Council. The centre is one of Umeå University’s most expansive units, and the workforce has more than doubled between 2008, the year that the unit was founded, and 2010 (from about 12 employees to 30).