The University of Duisburg-Essen (German: Universität Duisburg-Essen) is a public research university in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. In the 2019 Times Higher Education World University Rankings, the university was awarded 194th place in the world. It was originally founded in 1654 and re-established on 1 January 2003, as a merger of the Gerhard Mercator University of Duisburg and the university of Essen. It is based in both the cities of Duisburg and Essen, and a part of University Alliance Metropolis Ruhr.
With its 12 departments and around 40,000 students, the University of Duisburg-Essen is among the 10 largest German universities. Since 2014, research income has risen by 150 percent. Natural science and engineering are ranked within the top 10 in Germany, and the humanities are within the top 20 to 30. Especially, the physics field is ranked in the top 1 in Germany.
Contents
History
Origins: University of Duisburg (1555)
The university's origins date back to the 1555 decision of Duke Wilhelm V von Jülich-Kleve-Berg, to create a university for the unified duchies at the Lower Rhine. To this end, it was necessary to obtain a permission of the emperor and the pope. Although the permission of the pope was granted in 1564 and of the emperor in 1566, the university was founded about ninety years later in 1654, after the acquisition of the Duchy of Cleves by Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg. It opened on 14 October 1655 by Johannes Claudberg as their first rector. The university had four faculties: Theology, Medicine, Law and Arts. During its period of activity it was one of the central and leading universities of the western provinces of Prussia.
Only a few decades later the university was in competition with the much better equipped Dutch universities. Since only about one third of the population in the western provinces of Prussia were member of The Reformed Church, most Lutheran and Catholic citizens in the second half of the 18th century sent their sons to other universities.
The university declined rapidly and was closed on 18 October 1818, due to a Cabinet Order of Friedrich Wilhelm III. At the same time, the University of Bonn was founded. Large parts of the Duisburg University Library were relocated to Bonn and formed the basis of the newly formed Bonn Library. The sceptre of the University of Duisburg was given to the University of Bonn, where it is still located today.
In 1891, the Rheinisch-Westfälische Hüttenschule was relocated from Bochum to Duisburg. Subsequently, the school was transformed into the Königlich-Preußischen Maschinenbau- und Hüttenschule, and in 1938 was renamed to Public School of Engineering.
After a decision of the federal state government in 1960, the teacher training college of Kettwig was settled to Duisburg and was named Pedagogical University Ruhr. In 1968, the university was founded again in Duisburg, related to the old one, bearing the name: Comprehensive University of Duisburg. Initially only small, the university was developed rapidly in the 1970s up to about 15,000 students. In 1972 the Pedagogical University Ruhr and the Public School of Engineering, which was renamed in 1971 to University of applied sciences Duisburg. Other schools were also relocated to Duisburg. The University of Duisburg was then called Comprehensive University of Duisburg. In 1994 the university was renamed Gerhard Mercator University.
University of Essen (1972)
The university was founded in 1972 as the comprehensive university of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It was deliberately established – like other new institutions founded at the same time – as a measure within the framework of the structural transformation of the Ruhr region from a coal and steel center to a service center.
The University of Essen (also known as the University of Essen-GH ) was built as a complex of buildings around a green campus on the northern edge of the city center, on a previously demolished part of the traditional working-class district of Segeroth, now Essen-Nordviertel. By locating it near the city center and in a working-class district, and by distributing student dormitories throughout the city, the aim was to achieve close integration of academics into the urban population.
The University Hospital Essen, located in the Holsterhausen district, was integrated into the newly founded university. The Essen Municipal Hospitals, founded in 1909, were transformed into a state university hospital on 1 October 1963, with an eye toward university establishment plans for the Ruhr region. The hospital was temporarily assigned to the Westphalian Wilhelms University of Münster as its second medical faculty, and teaching began in the winter semester of 1963/64. In 1967, the hospital was transferred as planned to the recently founded Ruhr University Bochum. With the second wave of university foundings in 1972, it finally became a founding component of the University of Essen. Essen was thus the only one of the newly founded universities of the 1970s and the only city in the Ruhr region to have a university hospital.
In 1972, the design department of the Folkwang University of the Arts was transferred to the University of Essen. In 2007, the design department was transferred from the merged University of Duisburg-Essen back to the Folkwang University of the Arts, which was renamed in 2010. The facilities remained on the Essen campus until further notice.
The Essen University of Education in the Rüttenscheid district was also integrated, and its buildings continued to be used, as were the University of Applied Sciences for Mechanical Engineering on Schützenbahn and the University of Applied Sciences for Civil Engineering in the Moltkeviertel district. The Moltkestraße site is no longer used by the university; instead, it houses a vocational college run by the city of Essen. While the buildings of the former University of Education have since been vacated and demolished (the last structure to be demolished is currently the former university's indoor swimming pool; as of January 2022), the Schützenbahn site remains part of the merged university.
Merger and joint development
The merger of the two previously independent universities was initially proposed jointly to the state government by the two rectorates of the universities in order to pool resources and leverage synergies. However, the discussion about the path to restructuring was contentious. Discussions with the state government regarding the legal framework were also frequently contentious, but the University of Duisburg consistently supported the merger; the University of Essen rejected it in the final stages of the discussion. The merger was finally enacted by law on 18 December 2002, by the North Rhine-Westphalia state parliament, and Ministerial Director Heiner Kleffner was appointed as the founding commissioner. Lawsuits filed by the Essen rectorate against this law were dismissed by the Higher Administrative Court of Münster. During the founding phase of the new, merged university, there was intense debate about the allocation of subjects to the individual campuses.
The state government hoped that the merger would save costs and create larger departments at single locations by consolidating the range of subjects, with sufficient potential for specialization and effective participation in international scientific discourse. After the end of the founding phase, only one of the four major subject groups (humanities/social sciences, natural sciences, engineering, and medicine) is actually concentrated at one location:
Medicine remained at the Essen University Hospital. All teacher training programmes, with the exception of a few vocational specialisations, now take place in Essen, while departments such as physics have moved to Duisburg. According to a decision by the university governing bodies, however, sociology and political science still belong to the "Technical University" profile of the Duisburg campus; civil engineering, although part of the Faculty of Engineering whose programmes are primarily offered at the Duisburg campus, remains at the Essen campus. Furthermore, computer science and economics programmes continue to be offered concurrently at both campuses. Depending on their chosen combination of subjects, this may mean that students have to commute between the two locations; for this purpose, an hourly shuttle bus service has been established.
The university library is represented at both locations; its holdings are currently distributed across six specialized libraries.
Recent developments
In March 2007 the three universities of Bochum, Dortmund and Duisburg-Essen founded the University Alliance Metropolis Ruhr, which now includes more than 120,00 students and 1,300 professors and is modelled after the University of California system.
In May 2018, the three members of the University Alliance Metropolis Ruhr launched the Research Academy Ruhr (RAR), an inter- and university overarching programme for the development and support of young scientists. The programme is funded by the State of North Rhine-Westfalia (NRW) and the Mercator Research Centre Ruhr (MERCUR) with €800,000 over the next four years and an additional €1 million being added by the three participating members of the University Alliance.
Campus
The university has two main campus locations in Duisburg and Essen.
Faculties and Institutes
Main faculties
The University of Duisburg-Essen today has twelve faculties, listed below:
Faculty of Art and Design
Faculty of Biology and Geography
Faculty of Business Administration and Economics
Mercator School of Management – Faculty of Business Administration
Faculty of Chemistry
Faculty of Engineering
Department of Building sciences
Department of Electrical engineering and Information technology
Department of Computer sciences and Applied Cognitive Sciences
Department of Mechanical and Process engineering
Department of Transport Systems and Logistics
International Studies in Engineering
Faculty of Humanities
Faculty of Mathematics
Faculty of Medicine and University Hospital Essen
Faculty of Social sciences
Institute for Political Sciences
NRW School of Governance
Institute for Educational sciences
Central scientific institutes
Centre for Nanointegration Duisburg-Essen (CeNIDE) (German)
German-French Institute for Automation and Robotics (IAR)
Erwin L. Hahn Institute for Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Essen College of Gender Studies (EKfG)
Institute for Experimental Mathematics (IEM)
Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities
Institute of East Asian Studies (IN-EAST)
Institute for Labor/ Labour and Qualification (IAQ)
Interdisciplinary center for analytics on the nanoscale (ICAN)
Centre for Logistics and Transport (ZLV)
Centre for Medical Biotechnology (ZMB)
Centre for Water and Environmental Research (ZMU)
Centre for empirical research in education (ZeB)
Centre for Global Cooperation Research (CGCR)
The NRW School of Governance is a central institution within the Institute for Political science and was founded in 2006 under the direction of Karl-Rudolf Korte.
It aims, through research and teaching, to promote the scientifically sound understanding of political processes (in North Rhine-Westphalia).
Associated institutes
paluno, The Ruhr Institute for Software Technology
German Textile Research Centre North-west (DTNW)
Development Centre for Ship Technology and Transport Systems (DST)
Asia-Pacific Economic Research Institute (FIP)
Institute of Energy and Environmental Technology (IUTA)
Institute for Labor/ Labour and Qualification (IAQ)
Institute of Mobile and Satellite Communication Technology (IMST)
Institute for Prevention and Health Promotion (IPG)
Institute of Science and Ethics (IWE)
IWW Water Centre (IWW)
Rhine-Ruhr Institute for Social Research and Political Consulting (RISP)
Salomon Ludwig Steinheim Institute for German-Jewish History (StI)
Centre for Fuel Cell Technology (ZBT)
The university has a Confucius Institute.
Student body
As of 2018 it is the German university with the largest number of Chinese international students. Overall, it has a 16% composition of international students. The majority of such students are enrolled as engineering or economics majors.
People
Rectors
January 2003 – September 2003 – Heiner Kleffner, Founding commissioner and head of section
October 2003 – December 2006 – Lothar Zechlin, Founding rector
January 2007 – March 2008 – Lothar Zechlin, 1. rector
April 2008 – March 2022 – Ulrich Radtke, 2. rector
April 2022 – Barbara Albert
Mercator-Professorship Award
The University of Duisburg-Essen awards the Mercator-Professur to individuals who are well known for their social and scientific engagement. So far, recipients of the Mercator-Professur have been:
1997: Hans-Dietrich Genscher, politician (FDP), former foreign minister and vice-chancellor of Germany
1998: Siegfried Lenz, writer
1999: Jan Philipp Reemtsma, literary scholar.
2000: Jutta Limbach, jurist and politician (SPD)
2001: Volker Schlöndorff, filmmaker.
2002: Ulrich Wickert, journalist, chief anchor for tagesthemen
2003: Daniel Goeudevert French writer, management consultant.
2004: Walter Kempowski, writer.
2005: Richard von Weizsäcker, politician (CDU), former President of the Federal Republic of Germany.
2006: Necla Kelek, social scientist
2007: Hanan Ashrawi, legislator, activist, and scholar
2008: Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard, biologist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
2009: Peter Scholl-Latour, journalist and publicist
2010: Alice Schwarzer, publisher and feminist
2011: Udo Di Fabio, former judge of the Federal Constitutional Court
Poets in residence
The institution of the poet in residence is not missing at any university in the US. In Germany, the University of Duisburg-Essen was the first and, for a long time, only university that followed the American example and brought contemporary authors to the university as guest lecturers for readings and seminars. In 1975, Martin Walser was the first poet in residence to hold his poetics lectures in Essen.
Since the summer semester 2000, the following personalities have worked as poet in residence at the University of Essen (later Duisburg-Essen):
Ss 2000: Emine Sevgi Özdamar
Ws 2000/01: Kirsten Boie
Ss 2001: Volker Braun
Ws 2001/02: Robert Gernhardt
Ss 2002: Mike Nicol
Ss 2003: Friedrich Christian Delius
Ws 2003/04: Brigitte Burmeister
Ss 2004: Georg Klein
Ws 2004/05: Andreas Steinhöfel
Ss 2005: Yōko Tawada
Ws 2005/06: Dagmar Leupold
Ss 2006: Friedrich Ani
Ws 2006/07: Hans-Ulrich Treichel
Ss 2007: Terézia Mora
Ws 2007/08: Zafer Şenocak
Ss 2008: Jürgen Lodemann
Ws 2009/10: Klaus Händl
Ws 2010/11: Judith Kuckart
Academics
International cooperation
The university is part of the ERASMUS exchange programme.
The university also cooperates with several other international institutions of higher education.
Besides the main partnering universities, various faculty of the University Essen-Duisburg also cooperate with international universities and specific faculties or programmes (click "show" to expand).
As part of the University Alliance Metropolis Ruhr network the university is involved in running three liaison offices in Moscow, New York City and São Paulo. The offices aim to foster international academic exchange between the local and Ruhr area and are responsible for their respective continents.
The university is also part of the AURORA Network of European universities.
The university is part of the IS:link (Information Systems Student Exchange Network), the VDAC (Verband der Deutsch-Amerikanischen Clubs / Federation of German-American Clubs e.V.) and offers the internationally oriented, doctoral programme "ARUS – Advanced Research in Urban Systems", which is based on previous academic achievements in selected fields within the Joint Centre "Urban Systems".
Rankings
In the QS World University Rankings for 2024, the institution placed between 771 and 780 globally, corresponding to the 42nd rank nationally. The Times Higher Education World University Rankings for 2023 positioned the university in the 251–300 bracket worldwide, and between 27th and 32nd place within the national context. The ARWU World ranking for 2023 listed the university within the 301–400 tier globally, and between the 20th and 24th rank nationally.
Measured by the number of top managers in the German economy, University of Duisburg-Essen ranked 15th in 2019.
In May 2018 the Centrum für Hochschulentwicklung (CHE – Center for Higher Education Development) rankings placed the university in the top ranks in different categories and fields, like the Physics department for seminar and lecture content and Biology, Computer Science, Math, Medicine and Sports for excellent programmes and support in the early stages of starting at Essen-Duisburg.
In the European Commission-funded U-Multirank system the university as a whole was ranked as "excellent" in the research categories "External research income", "Top cited publications", "Post-doc positions", in the knowledge transfer categories "Income from private sources", "Spin-offs" and "Publications cited in patents". In the category international orientation Essen-Duisburg was rated "excellent" for their "International academic staff".
Notable people
Alumni
Notable alumni of the university include:
Peter Bialobrzeski, photographer and a professor of photography
Rainer Blasczyk, physician for transfusion medicine
Cornelius Boersch, serial entrepreneur and business angel
Osagie Ehanire, Nigerian medical doctor and politician
Andreas Gursky, artist and photographer
Ina Hartwig, writer, literature critic and academic lecturer
Bärbel Höhn, politician
Klaus-Dieter Hungenberg, chemist
Petra Kammerevert, politician
Suzie Kerstgens, singer
Moritz Körner (born 1990), politician of the Free Democratic Party, Member of the European Parliament
Hannelore Kraft, politician and Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westfalia (NRW)
Heike Mauer, gender theorist
Dieter Nuhr, cabaret artist
Frank T. Rothaermel, American academic
Peter Voswinckel, physician, medical historian and author
Gorden Wagener, car designer, and is the chief design officer for Daimler AG
Points of interest
Botanischer Garten der Universität Duisburg-Essen, the university's botanical garden in Essen