The Universiade is referred to in English as the World University Games or World Student Games. However, this latter term can also refer to competitions for sub-University grade students. In July 2020 as part of a new branding system by the FISU, it was stated that the Universiade was to be officially branded as the FISU World University Games.
The first modern athletics clubs in the world were founded at CambridgeUniversity in 1857, and OxfordUniversity in 1860. Those universities held Inter-'Varsity Sports, also called The Cambridge and Oxford Athletic Games, from 1864 onwards. Other varsity matches developed between Cambridge and Oxford universities and spread to Harvard University and Yale University in the United States.
English peace campaigner Hodgson Pratt was an early advocate of a global international sports competition between student athletes. He proposed the motion which was passed at the 1891 Universal Peace Congress in Rome to create a series of international student conferences in rotating host capital cities, with activities including art and sport. This did not come to fruition, but a national multi-sport event for university students was created in Germany in 1909 in the form of the Academic Olympia. Five editions were held from 1909 to 1913, all of which were hosted in Germany following the cancellation of an Italy-based event. By 1918, students' union presidents in the United Kingdom expressed the need to have an association to promote sport at universities across the country. The Inter-Varsity Athletics Board of England and Wales (IVAB) was established in 1919 and organised the first inter-varsity track and field meeting that year at Manchester University. In the United States, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), at the time a discussion group and rules-making body, organised its first National Collegiate Track and Field Championships in 1921.
At the start of the 20th century, Jean Petitjean of France began attempting to organise a "University Olympic Games". After discussion with Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympic Games, Petitjean was convinced not to use the word "Olympic" in the tournament's name. Petitjean was the first to build a series of international events, beginning with the 1923 International Universities Championships, organised by the Union Nationale des Étudiants de France (UNEF). This was followed by the renamed 1924 Summer Student World Championships a year later, the first organised by the Confédération Internationale des Étudiants (CIE). Two further editions were held in 1927 and 1928. Another name change resulted in the 1930 International University Games. The CIE's International University Games was held four more times in the 1930s before having its final edition in 1947.
After the closure of the CIE and the creation of the first UIE-organised games, the International University Sports Federation (FISU) came into being in 1949 and held its own first major student sport event the same year in the form of the 1949 Summer International University Sports Week. The Sports Week was held biennially until 1955. Like the CIE's games before it, the FISU events were initially Western-led sports competitions.
Division between the largely Western European FISU and Eastern European UIE eventually began to dissipate among broadened participation at the 1957 World University Games. This event was not directly organised by either group, instead being organised by Jean Petitjean in France (which remained neutral to the split), but all respective nations from the groups took part. The FISU-organised Universiade became the direct successor to this competition, maintaining the biennial format into the inaugural 1959 Universiade. It was not until the 1957 World University Games that the Soviet Union began to compete in FISU events. That same year, what had previously been a European competition became a truly global one, with the inclusion of Brazil, Japan and the United States among the competing nations. The increased participation ultimately led to the establishment of the Universiade as the primary global student sport championship.
Precursor events
Although not recognised by the FISU as Universiade or World University Games, the precursor events since 1923 are considered part of its history:
↑Originally scheduled to be held on 15–27 August 2021, but was postponed to 25 June–7 July 2022, and again to 2023 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. With the eventual cancellation of the 2023 Games in Yekaterinburg due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, this edition replaced the 2023 Games.
Since the second edition held in 1961, it has been up to the Organising Committee and the National University Sports Federation of the host country to choose sports or optional competitions. According to their demands, there is a list of mandatory sports that are defined by the International University Sports Federation and could be reviewed at the end of each edition. The event also serves as the World University Championship. At the first edition, only 8 sports were in the programme (athletics, basketball, fencing, gymnastics, swimming, tennis, volleyball and water polo). The first additional sport to be considered optional was diving, which was added to the second edition in 1961. Optional events were added in basketball and volleyball when women's tournaments were played. In 1963, the women's basketball was dropped from the sporting programme. In 1967, the third World University Judo Championship was held in Tokyo and was integrated into the fifth edition of the Summer Universiade as an optional sport, thus gaining the status of an optional sport and thus inaugurating a new type of sport at the event, which is that of the optional sport. Therefore, the sport with this status is not part of the fixed programme and could be in the current edition, but not necessarily in the next one.
Swimming at the Summer World University Games: Swimming has been a compulsory event since the first edition in 1959. Open water events were held between 2011 to 2017 and Artistic Swimming was held as an optional sport in 2013.
Gymnastics at the Summer World University Games (artistic and rhythmic): Artistic Gymnastics was an optional sport in 1961, turned compulsory in 1963. Rhythmic Gymnastics was an optional sport in 1991, 1995 and 1997, turned compulsory in 2001. An aerobics event was held as an optional event in 2011.
Football at the Summer World University Games – Obsolescent since 2019, after the creation of the FISU University World Cup Football. Optional sport in 1979, compulsory from 1985 to 2019.
Winter Games
Since 1960 until 1989, limited and fixed sports were held. Since the 1991 Winter Universiade the host is allowed to choose some sports that are approved by FISU as optional sports.
Biathlon at the Winter World University Games – Compulsory since 1997. Optional sport in 1983, 1989, 1993.Held betwen 1997 to 2025,dropped in 2027 due ambiental issues at the planned venue.
↑Smith, Ronald Austin (1988). Sports and Freedom: The Rise of Big-time College Athletics. Oxford University Press. ISBN978-0-19-506582-4. Perhaps more than any other two colleges, Harvard and Yale gave form to American intercollegiate athletics--a form that was inspired by the Oxford-Cambridge rivalry overseas, and that was imitated by colleges and universities throughout the United States. Focusing on the influence of these prestigious eastern institutions, this fascinating study traces the origins and development of intercollegiate athletics in America from the mid-nineteenth century to the early twentieth century.
↑"World Rowing - "The Race" – how Yale and Harvard kick-started US College Sport 170 years ago this month". World Rowing. Retrieved 17 May 2025. As the sport of rowing was growing rapidly in the United Kingdom with the founding of major events such as the Boat Race (1829) and Henley Royal Regatta (1839), rowing on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean was slowly progressing. "Amateur clubs were formed in the New York area in the 1830s, and races were well publicized," says Weil, "so the idea was not novel when some Yale classmates bought a boat and established the first collegiate boat club in 1843. Harvard followed the next year."
↑Janssen, Frederick William (1887). A History of American Amateur Athletics and Aquatics. In 1866 amateur athletic sport had just begun to assume prominence in England ... the first Oxford-Cambridge games were held Mach 5, 1864 ... discussed the rapid rise and spread of athletic sports in England, and decided to begin ... an ... endeavor to interest American youth in those matters, and eventually to found an American amateur athletic club on the model of its English predecessors.
123Bell, Daniel (2003). Encyclopedia of International Games. McFarland and Company, Inc. Publishers, Jefferson, North Carolina. ISBN0-7864-1026-4.
.svg)
