The University of Nicosia (UNIC) is, by most measures, the leading university globally in the digital currency and blockchain field. UNIC has long considered blockchain technology to be a fundamental technological breakthrough with significant financial and societal implications and selected it as one of its three interdisciplinary priorities across all schools and departments of the university. In particular, the objective is to help students, businesses and governments develop a holistic view of the technical, business, legal and societal implications of cryptocurrency and blockchain technologies in order to help build a better societal future.
In this spirit, UNIC has constantly broken new ground in academia, being the first university in the world to:
This leading role in academia has been recognized by blockchain industry publications in their evaluation of UNIC's position among universities involved in the field – CoinDesk (#1, 2016), the Merkle (#1, 2017). Today, UNIC, through its School of Business, School of Sciences and Institute For the Future (IFF) has probably the largest team in the academic world working on cryptocurrency and blockchain issues, with over 35 faculty, industry lecturers, administrative staff and guest lecturers involved with the initiative, across teaching, research and software development.
UNIC continues to teach the world's oldest and best known MOOC in the space (DFIN-511: Introduction to Digital Currency) which has had over 7,000 participants and enrolls students twice a year. It offers the world's largest academic degree program in the space with over 100 students enrolled from around the world, representing a wide range of backgrounds such as medical doctors, financial executives, blockchain entrepreneurs and central bankers. Graduating students from the program have gone on to work in at key firms in the industry, created startups in the blockchain space or worked in government and academia. UNIC also provides corporate and professional training to a variety of financial and business organizations and is the key academic partner of the Association of Financial Professionals. UNIC is actively involved in the academic blockchain ecosystem via its Blockchain Research Center. It has active collaborations with many universities in the space such as Cambridge, Carnegie Mellon, Peking University and George Mason and is active in the broader ecosystem, leading or participating in panels at Consensus 2017 and ASU/GSV 2017.
UNIC's blockchain initiatives have drawn immense interest from global media over the years, with over 300 articles having been written about UNIC's activities by global media organizations such as the Wall Street Journal, Associated Press, Euronews, Forbes, Time, Fast Company and many others.
For more information about UNIC's overall digital currency and blockchain initiatives: digitalcurrency.unic.ac.cy
