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The University of Cologne (German: Universität zu Köln) is a public research university in Cologne, Germany. It was established in 1388. It closed in 1798 before being re-established in 1919. It is now one of the largest universities in Germany with around 43,594 students. The University of Cologne is a member of the German U15 association of major research-intensive universities and is a "university of excellence" as part of the German Universities Excellence Initiative. It is consistently ranked among the top 20 German universities in the world rankings.
The University of Cologne has 5 Clusters of Excellence: CECAD Cluster of Excellence for Aging Research, Cluster of Excellence ECONtribute: Markets & Public Policy, CEPLAS Cluster of Excellence for Plant Sciences, ML4Q Cluster of Excellence Matter and Light for Quantum Information and DYNAVERSE Cluster of Excellence. As of 2025, among its notable alumni, faculty and researchers are 5 Nobel Laureates, 11 Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize winners, 8 Humboldt Professorship winners, and 2 Humboldt Research Awards winners.
The University of Cologne was established in 1388 as the fourth university in the Holy Roman Empire, after the Charles University of Prague (1348), the University of Vienna (1365) and the Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg (1386). The charter was signed by Pope Urban VI. The university began teaching on 6 January 1389, and operated for several hundred years.
In 1798, the university was abolished by the French First Republic, which had invaded Cologne in 1794, as many universities across France were abolished under the new French constitution. The last rector Ferdinand Franz Wallraf was able to preserve the university's Great Seal, which is now in use again.
In 1919, the Prussian government endorsed a decision by the Cologne City Council to re-establish the university. This was considered to be a replacement for the loss of the University of Strasbourg on the west bank of the Rhine, which contemporaneously reverted to France with the rest of Alsace. On 29 May 1919, the Cologne mayor Konrad Adenauer signed the charter of the new university.
At that point, the new university was located in Neustadt-Süd, but relocated to its current campus in Lindenthal on 2 November 1934. The old premises are now being used by the TH Köln – University of Applied Sciences.
Initially, the university was composed of the Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences (successor to the Institutes of Commerce and of Communal and Social Administration) and the Faculty of Medicine (successor to the Academy of Medicine). In 1920, the Faculty of Law and the Faculty of Arts were added, from which the School of Mathematics and Natural Sciences was separated in 1955 to form an independent Faculty. In 1980, the two Cologne departments of the Rhineland School of Education were attached to the university as the Faculties of Education and of Special Education. In 1988, the university became a founding member of the Community of European Management Schools and International Companies (CEMS), today's Global Alliance in Management Education.
The university is regularly ranked at the top of national and international law and business rankings (see Rankings).
The University of Cologne is a statutory corporation (Körperschaft des öffentlichen Rechts), operated by the Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia.
The university is divided into six Faculties, which together offer 137 degree programmes. The Faculties are those of Management, Economics and Social Sciences, Law, Medicine (with the affiliated University Hospital Cologne), Arts and Humanities, Mathematics and Natural Sciences and Human Sciences.
On 10 May 2023, Joybrato Mukherjee was elected as Rector of the University.
The University of Cologne is a member of the association German U15 e.V., an association of fifteen major research-intensive and leading medical universities in Germany with a full disciplinary spectrum.
Especially the Faculties of law and economics are renowned and leading in Germany. Leading researchers are affiliated to Cologne, including Angelika Nußberger, Thomas von Danwitz, Claus Kreß, Martin Henssler, Ulrich Preis, Heinz-Peter Mansel.
Apart from these, affiliated persons with the university have won various awards, including the Max Planck Research Award, the Cologne Innovation Prize (City of Cologne), the Postbank Finance Award (Deutsche Postbank), the Ernst Jung Prize in Medicine (Jung Foundation), the SASTRA Ramanujan Prize, the Wilhelm Vaillant Prize (Wilhlem Vaillant Foundation), the Heinz Maier Leibnitz Prize (DFG), the Alfried Krupp Prize for the Advancement of Young Professors, the Innovation Prize of the State of NRW, and the Karl Arnold Prize (North Rhine-Westphalia Academy of Sciences and Arts).
The university did not have a name for a long time, except for the medieval name universitas studii s[an]c[ta]e civitatis coloniensis (see the university's seal) or the newer description Universität Köln (loosely, Cologne University). Both names emphasized that the university was an institution of the city of Cologne. Josef Kroll proposed the official name Universität zu Köln (loosely, University in Cologne) while he was rector of the university in the early 1930s, and introduced it during his second term of office (1945–1950). The university, which gives some courses in English, is also branded University of Cologne.
The rectorate is responsible for the governance and management of the university. It consists of the rector as chairperson (Joybrato Mukherjee), six Vice-Rectors and the Chancellor (Karsten Gerlof). The rectorate is elected by the University Election Assembly, in which the Senate and the University Council exercise equal voting power; the first term of office is at least six years and subsequent terms of office at least four years. The rector is chairperson of the rectorate and the Senate of the university.
The university is divided into the following six Faculties:
WS 2023/24, according to the university publication 'Zahlen Daten Fakten 2023' (as of March 2025), main and part-time students, excluding doctoral students, incl. short-term students
On 20 July 2005, the University Senate approved a concept for the reorganization of the Faculties. The concept led to the dissolution of the Faculty of Education and the Faculty of Curative Education and the founding of a new 'sixth' Faculty, the Faculty of Human Sciences. The representatives of the didactic subjects, who had previously worked mainly at the Faculty of Education, were assigned to the Faculties corresponding to their subject as a separate subject group for didactics (for example "Biology and its didactics", "Chemistry and its didactics" as a new didactic subject group at the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences), while the new Faculty of Human Sciences mainly retained the pedagogical, curative education and psychology subjects or transferred them from the Faculty of Arts and Humanities and the Faculty of Education. The reorganization of the Faculties was officially implemented on 1 January 2007 with the establishment of the corresponding committees. In 2010, the Center for Teacher Education was founded, which was given extensive responsibilities in the organization and coordination of teacher training degree programmes as part of the restructuring of teacher training in North Rhine-Westphalia.
Clusters of Excellence / Excellence Strategy of the German federal and state governments:
Adenauer School of Government:
On 5 June 2025, the University of Cologne and the non-profit Alfred Landecker Foundation, founded by the Reimann family, signed a cooperation agreement to establish the Adenauer School of Government (ASG). The aim of the ASG is to establish itself as a leading, non-partisan center for public policy, governance and administrative sciences that helps to shape relevant developments in economics and other research fields. The school will be funded in long term, with an initial budget of ten million euros per year.
Some University of Cologne professors are also members of major research institutions:
Each year, the University of Cologne recognizes outstanding achievements in the categories research, teaching and learning as well as administration.
This scholarship is awarded to doctoral candidates. The scholarship is awarded in honour of professor Benedikt Schmittmann (1872–1939), a professor at the University of Cologne.
In 2003, a former employee in the International Office, who was responsible for studies abroad, set up a university scholarship fund; thanks to donations from former international scholarship holders and friends of internationalization, scholarships can be awarded annually for study visits at partner universities that offer a fee waiver.
The Cologne University Foundation was established in 2019 to promote early-career researchers, research and academic projects. The foundation manages private donations to the university, which promote the transfer of knowledge to society.
The volume of third-party funding was 239.2 million euros in 2023, of which 103.9 million euros was allocated to the Faculty of Medicine. The German Research Foundation was by far the largest provider of third-party funding with around 101.5 million euros. Other third-party funders in 2023 were the EU (16.9 million euros), the federal government (42.8 million euros), the state of North Rhine-Westphalia (21.7 million euros), foundations (17.2 million euros), industry (29.9 million euros) and other third-party funders (9.2 million euros).
The university has acquired a number of endowed professorships, some of which have been established on a long-term basis or only for a few years and are then funded by the state.
Text from the Wikipedia article “University of Cologne”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.