Bremen University

University of Bremen

Universität Bremen
Type	Public
Established	1971
Budget	€ 325.8 million
Rector	Bernd Scholz-Reiter
Academic staff	2,330
Administrative staff	1,185
Students	19,173
Location	Bremen, Free Hanseatic City of Bremen, Germany
Campus	Urban
Website	www.uni-bremen.de

The University of Bremen (German Universität Bremen) is a public university in Bremen, Germany, with approximately 23,500 people from 115 countries. It is one of 11 institutions which were successful in the category "Institutional Strategies" of the Excellence Initiative launched by the Federal Government and the Federal States in 2012. The university was also successful in the categories "Graduate Schools" and "Clusters of Excellence" of the initiative.

Its commitment was rewarded with the title “Stadt der Wissenschaft 2005” (City of Science of 2005), which science, politics, business and culture won jointly for Bremen and Bremerhaven, by the Foundation for German Science (Stifterverband für die Deutsche Wissenschaft).

Some of the paths that were taken in the early days of the University, also referred to as the "Bremen model", have since become characteristics of modern universities, such as interdisciplinary, explorative learning, social relevance to practice-oriented project studies which enjoy a high reputation in the academic world as well as in business and industry.

Though Bremen became a university city only recently, higher education in Bremen has a long tradition. The Bremen Latin School was upgraded to "Gymnasium Academicum" in 1584. 1610 it was transformed into "Gymnasium Illustre". Under Napoleonic rule in 1811 the institution of a "French-Bremen University" was considered. In 1971 the University of Bremen opened its doors.

The development of the University of Bremen can be divided up into steps of 10 to 12 years – first foundation, then restructuring, consolidation and profile building. At the beginning of the 1970s, the University was set up as a "science complex" in a city oriented towards trade and seafaring that had no experience with academia, particularly not with leftist professors. University, business and the public in the region did not move closer together until the 1980s, through the foundation of the natural science and engineering departments, co-operation with the newly founded Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Bremerhaven (1980), as well as the development of the co-located technology park (from 1988). Other important factors were the initial success in setting up collaborative research centres and in the acquisition of considerable of external funds. The mathematics professor Jürgen Timm, elected university rector in 1982, was largely responsible for this turnaround.