Heidelberg University, founded in 1386, is Germany’s oldest university and has one of the strongest research profiles in all of Europe. The current successes in the Excellence Initiative and in internationally recognised rankings prove that Heidelberg’s excellent reputation and leading role in the scientific community is well deserved. In terms of educating students and promoting promising early-career academics, Heidelberg relies on its two strongest points: research-based teaching and superlative, well-structured training for doctoral candidates.

Heidelberg University is a comprehensive university, offering the full spectrum of disciplines in the humanities, law and the social sciences alongside the natural and life sciences, including medicine. As a comprehensive university, Heidelberg aims to continue to strengthen the individual disciplines and to further interdisciplinary cooperation, as well as to carry research results over into society and industry. With its aspiration of connecting traditional values with future-oriented scientific concepts in research and teaching, the university is building bridges to the future – Zukunft. Seit 1386.

Faculties: 

• Natural Sciences, Mathematics, and Computer Sciences
• Liberal Arts and Theology
• Law, Economics, and Social Sciences
• Medicine

Heidelberg: An International University:

Founded in 1386, Heidelberg is Germany’s oldest university and one of the most research-intensive higher-education institutions in Europe. Its success in the Excellence Initiative devised by Germany’s federal and state governments, its involvement in a large number of externally funded integrated research ventures and its participation in European research programmes have made Heidelberg a front runner among the renowned universities with worldwide research and teaching links. In its endeavours to produce young scientists and scholars and to support outstanding young researchers, Heidelberg University focuses on research-based teaching and does everything in its power to assure the excellent quality of its carefully structured doctoral programmes.

Heidelberg University has always been international in its scope. Today it is integrated into a worldwide network of cooperative research and teaching ventures. It operates exchange schemes with over 300 universities all over the world. Nineteen university partnerships, five international graduate and doctoral programmes and participation in European networks like the Coimbra Group or the League of European Research Universities testify to the highly outward-looking nature of Heidelberg University’s educational policies. In addition, it is involved in a large number of cooperative research and teaching agreements at faculty, department and chair levels.

Some 20 percent of the undergraduates at Heidelberg University and about one-third of its doctoral students come from other countries. The University has also established its presence in Central and Eastern Europe, Latin America, North America and Asia with liaison offices and study programmes. With funding from the Federal Foreign Office and in conjunction with Chilean partners, the Heidelberg Center for Latin America, a postgraduate and continuing education centre in Santiago de Chile, is now being expanded to form one of four German “Centres of Excellence in Research and Teaching” in various parts of the world.