University of Duisburg-Essen

The University of Duisburg-Essen (UDE) is Germany’s youngest university. It was created in 2003 through a merger of the formerly independent universities of Duisburg and Essen. Some 34,000 students are currently enrolled at university, 3,600 of them being foreign students from more than 130 countries, placing the UDE among the 10 largest universities in Germany. At the UDE, more than 400 professors, supported by an additional academic staff of over 2,300, conduct research and teach in a broad variety of academic disciplines, ranging from humanities over economics to natural science and medicine.

Since its inauguration, the UDE has successfully sharpened its profile both in research and education. For instance, due to the UDE's commitment to offering students the best possible conditions for studying and working, a comprehensive mentoring system, which entitles every student to consulting an individual mentor of the academic staff, has been established. Furthermore, in many disciplines the UDE now ranks amongst the top 10 of German research universities and research income has risen by 150 % over the past three years.

Diversity in Education

Currently, over 5,000 foreign students from 130 different countries are enrolled at the university, which corresponds to the UDE having the third highest number of international graduates on a nationwide scale. Furthermore, the UDE is engaged in more than 400 international collaborations partners from around the globe, amongst them are official partnerships with 74 universities in 28 countries and numerous scientific and academic contacts, particularly in the USA and China. Above all, scientists and teachers of the UDE connect on a regular basis with colleagues around the globe to work.

The university's diversity in education is also reflected by the broad, diverse spectrum of academic disciplines covered at the UDE. The 11 faculties, ranging from Humanities and Social Sciences over Economics and Business Administration to Engineering, Physics and Medicine, offer over 100 undergraduate and graduate programmes.

The faculties are located at one of the three campuses of UDE, with Duisburg and Essen both hosting important gateway disciplines like mathematics, computer science and economics. However, in Duisburg, the stress is on the social and political sciences as well as on engineering and natural sciences, while on the main Campus in Essen, the focus is on the humanities, art and design as well as on the life sciences. The second campus in Essen is devoted to medical science and organised around a huge university medical centre.

Strong in Research

Today, the UDE performs at the highest scientific level. Research at the university is diverse in every respect, covering wide-ranging themes and taking place on an interdisciplinary basis and a national and international scale. These strengths are reflected in the university’s good position in rankings, but above all in the number of Collaborative Research Centres, Research Units, Priority Programmes, Research Training Groups, Associated Institutes, like the renowned NRW School of Governance, and many other individual projects located here. Finally, the UDE also accomplished its high reputation in research thanks to the five main research areas: Nano Sciences, Biomedical Sciences, Urban Systems, Empirical Research in Education, and Change of Contemporary Societies. These main research areas constitute, among others, the central research facilities of the UDE, such as the Centre for Medical Biotechnology (ZMB).