University of Dusseldorf

Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf is one of the younger higher education institutions in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia – founded in 1965. Since 1988 our university has carried the name of one of the city’s finest sons. Today around 30,000 students study at a modern campus under conditions ideally suited to academic life.

As a campus university where everything is close together, all buildings including the University Hospital and the specialised libraries are easily reachable. Our university departments enjoy an excellent reputation due to an exceptionally high number of collaborative research centres. Moreover, the state capital Düsseldorf provides an attractive environment with a high quality of life.

Our young university already has a long tradition: It has grown out of the Medical Academy founded in 1907. In 1965 the university was created by the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It started with three faculties: the Faculty of Medicine, the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, and the Faculty of Arts and Humanities.

In 1988 it was renamed Heinrich Heine University and experienced a period of dynamic growth. In the 1990s two new faculties were added: the Faculty of Business and Economics and the Faculty of Law. Today, around 30,000 students, more than 2,000 lecturers and 900 further employees study, teach, and work on our campus. At the beginning of the winter semester 2015/16 we were able to welcome about 4000 new students.

The Heinrich Heine University (HHU) is divided up into five faculties which are all located on one campus. The oldest one and core of the university is the Faculty of Medicine, followed by the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences and the Faculty of Arts and Humanities. In the late 1980s and early 1990s the Faculty of Business and Economics and the Faculty of Law were then launched.

One of our foci today, linking all faculties, are the Life Sciences. Cross-departmental, joint study programmes (such as Business Chemistry) are one of our major strengths.

Founded in 1992, the Faculty of Law of Dusseldorf’s Heinrich-Heine-University is one of the youngest law faculties in the Federal Republic of Germany. With youthful dynamism, the Faculty has quickly developed into one of the most attractive and popular places to study in the country.

A well-deserved academic reputation, a modern library and a strong integration with legal practice constitute the second pillar of the Faculty of Law. The clear and distinct profile is focused on business law as well as on European and international law.

Manifold contacts to European and other foreign countries define the young and dynamic Faculty. Many students take part in international study exchanges and the school's professors take part in foreign conferences.

Its image is rounded out by a variety of post-graduate offerings that have been integrated into an organizational context through the founding of a “Law School”. Both LL.M.-programs (in German) and international summer schools and courses are available to the public.

17 professors are engaged in teaching and research at the Faculty of Law of Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf; eight institutes are centres of academic work with close ties to everyday law practice. 20 honorary professors and about 60 lecturers, who contribute their practical experience as judges and lawyers, support the teaching curriculum.

Heinrich Heine University is a successful, dynamic and innovative university. Since its foundation in 1965, HHU pursues a continuous growth strategy. Today, HHU comprises fi ve faculties with 365 professorships and eleven central and interdisciplinary facilities.

HHU aims to develop a uniquely distinct profile through its developmental plan HEP 20.21.

The strategic measures of this developmental plan HEP 20.21 will result in stringent qualitative and quantitative advancements of Heinrich Heine University and will position HHU thematically in the areas of life sciences, natural sciences, the humanities, and social sciences.

It is the explicit goal of this road map to increase the attractiveness of HHU for outstanding researchers, for junior faculty, for excellent graduate students, for postdoctoral fellows, and for highly motivated members of faculties as well as for staff within the central university administration and interdisciplinary facilities. HHU also endeavors to attract outstanding students by providing excellent research and teaching programs.

Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf is further developing its research profile. Three kinds of areas have been identified and will be further enhanced through strategic intramural programs: core areas, areas with high potential, and areas to be further developed. This is implemented by strategic funding of new research endeavors (strategic research fund), the establishment of a HHU innovation fund, the reorganization of the Heine graduate academies (HeRA), and the extension of its Interdisciplinary Biomedical Research Center as well as the support of individual researchers.

These specific measures will allow our university to reach its ambitious qualitative and quantitative aims within the scientific developmental planning by the year 2021. Sustainable scientific alliances with our non-university partner institutions and our university partners will be strengthened and broadened.

In addition to HHU's Cluster of Excellence and already established Collaborative Research Centers (CRC), our university endeavors to establish more research initiatives: the continuation and the procurement of new Clusters of Excellence funded by the federal government and federal states, the establishment of new DFG CRCs, DFG research units and research training groups as well as the procurement of additional European Research Council Grants and Emmy-Noether junior research groups funded by the DFG and BMBF as well as other granting organizations are specific developmental aims. In this regard, the broadness of research is considered advantageous as a source for new research areas at HHU.

Implementation of the goals outlined above should lead to an increase in scientific output due to collaborative and individual research projects, and result in a significant increase in the annual extramural funding for research activities (from currently approx. € 50 millions to approx. € 81 millions until the year 2021).