Most of the initiatives taken by the European Community and by other countries internationally in the field of science education focus on elementary and secondary levels of education, and relatively few reports have analysed the state of science education in higher education. However, research in science education, and in particular in physics education, has shown repeatedly that the way teachers teach in elementary and secondary school is strongly influenced by their own prior experience as university students. The education that future professionals, such as scientists, engineers and science teachers, receive at the university is worthy of study, because it allows us to investigate student learning relatively independently of developmental issues, and because of the more rigorous treatment of physics topics at the university level. For these reasons, it seems appropriate to identify, analyse and provide solutions to the problems of teaching and learning related to the university physics curriculum. In this symposium, we present examples of physics education research from different countries that is focused on physics topics.